Love Comes Softly
by katthecat12
Summary: Can the famous Uchiha aristocracy get his answer from the Konoha Acadomy honors student, Sakura in time? This oddball comody is mixed with tragety and love as well as some good laughs and mischeif. SasuSaku  Warning: first story/awful writing skills
1. Pfft! Rich People!

A/N: Please enjoy my first chapter of my first fan fiction ever!!! ;D and be sure to write a review or message me with your opinions!

Disclaimer: I _**DO NOT**_ own **_ANY_** of the Naruto charicters, but I have total dibs on the plot line ;)

* * *

**Chapter 1 – Pfft. Rich People. . .**

* * *

"Ino, I don't know." Sakura said hesitantly to her best friend Ino on the other end of the phone.

"Come on Sakura you deserve to go to a better high school! I just know that you can ace the honors student entrance exam!" Ino said with enthusiasm

Sakura pondered her life at a school with a lot of wealthy people. Ino was the only considerably rich girl she knew. On top of that, if she were to compare Ino to the other students at that academy she'd probably be ranked towards the bottom.

"Um… Sakura?…Sakura?!....SA-KU-RAAAAA!!!"

"Hunh?! What is it Ino?!"

Ino got a grip on her anger and tried to keep her composure while saying "Just take it Haruno… I know that you can do it!... Look, I know that you don't know any people at your high school so that's not an issue, plus if you go to my school you'll have at least one friend!... That beats none right?!... The reason you don't have any is because you're so socially awkward!"

Although Ino couldn't see it, Sakura was clenching one of her fists and grinding her teeth at the bitter comment from her best friend. She knew that Ino meant well, but sometimes she just had a bad habit of being brutally honest… too honest…

"FINE!!..." Sakura shouted into the phone.

Ino took five minutes to register what her best friend had just said and Ino made a final retort "That's my little scaredy cat!!" *chkk* and hung up

Sakura let out a long irritated sigh. She hated that nick name, and felt like she was getting herself into more trouble then she bargained for. It's true that she and Ino had been friends ever sense they were just toddlers, long before they ever went to school. Ino had occasionally dished out her nick name "scaredy cat" which she got after a sleep over during a summer vacation years ago, when they were both 2nd year middle schoolers.

Sakura didn't know when she developed the phobia, but she was terrified of thunder. When thunder rolled along and made everything shake with ferocity and screaming indecipherable phrases, Sakura screamed and shivered with pure terror.

If a ghost were in front of her it wouldn't faze her compared to her fear of thunder.

Sakura was at Ino's house when there was a massive storm. There was lightning and thunder almost non-stop. Sakura was scared out of her mind. Ino did her best to comfort her distraught friend, but eventually Sakura just passed out from so much strain on her body from the terror. The following morning she woke up and Ino brought up the subject while they were eating breakfast and began teasing her playfully and gave her the nick name "scaredy cat". Though it wasn't very original, it still tended to agitate Sakura whenever Ino said it.

As she was lost in her pool of memories with Ino her mother knocked on her door and entered and her face was brimming with happiness.

"Guess what Sakura?!?!" her mother said in a very happy-go-lucky tone of voice that was almost annoying.

"What?" she asked her over enthusiastic mother.

"We just got off the phone with Tsunade-san, the principal of your friend Ino's high school." Her mother said biting her lip while smiling waiting for Sakura to say something.

"aaaaaaand?" Sakura said sarcastically.

"And!… they were so impressed with your academics that they said you wouldn't even need to take the honors student exam! They got a letter of recommendation from all your teachers too!... Sakura?" Her mother asked with a concerned face. As she watched her daughter looking far off into the distance.

"oh... Yea mom, that's great." She said quietly

"Well aren't you just a radiant orb of energy and enthusiasm!!" her mother stated sarcastically.

"I'm sorry. I just, don't know what it's going to be like going to school with a bunch of rich kids. It might be nice to have some more friends…"

"_if they even notice me. . ."_

"Well try no to think too hard, it's going to be your first day tomorrow, we already filed, sent, and did your transfer paperwork online, so your officially going to Konoha High School Academy as of tomorrow!!" her mother said with excitement

"Ok. Hey mom, I'm not hungry so I'm just going to go to bed early. Is that ok?"

"Sure it is! You'll need your rest for tomorrow!... but be sure to take a shower first, ok dear?"

"yea mom."

* * *

"BRRIIINNGGGG BRRIIIINGGGG!!!!!!!!!" her alarm clock went off as she slowly opened her eyes and adjusted them to the light. She rubbed her eyes and got dressed for the school day. She had a feeling that she would stand out sense she can't afford a school uniform.

"_40,000 yen is too much for an outfit anyway. . . it's a ridiculous amount to ask anyone for . . . but then again . . . these are rich kids . . . they sneeze at a price like that. . ."_

As she was fastening her shoes she heard her mother yell up the stairs "Sakura! If you don't hurry you're going to be late! And that's not what you want on your first day!"

Sakura rushed downstairs ready for school and snatch a piece of toast as she bolted for the door. She would've broken out into a sprint but she decided she didn't want to look all sweaty and gross the first time she met her new classmates.

"Sakura! Get in!"

She looked to her left and saw Ino in her limo.

"_Stupid rich people . . . they get their own sho-furs!! Like Ino!!"_

"If you get in Haruno you won't be late now come on!"

The door to the expensive foreign limo was swung open with Ino's jubilant face peeking out. Sakura got in knowing it was pure luck that Ino caught her.

As they were sitting in the limo Ino eye-balled her quizzically and said "you didn't get a school uniform yet?"

Sakura turned slightly irritated but knew Ino was being serious.

"No I didn't. There's no way in hell that I can afford a 40,000 yen outfit. I've never bought anything that expensive in my life!" Sakura said containing her irritation on the subject.

Ino just shrugged and said that people would notice, but sense her outfit was cute and slightly resembled a uniform she wouldn't get too many ugly looks shot at her.

Ino briefed her on all the classes, teachers, and classmates. She said what makes the private academy so different is that they don't rotate classrooms, they rotate teachers. So everyone always stays in the same class together and knows each other more.

She also wouldn't shut up about some boy named Sasuke Uchiha who apparently is one of the boys at the school. He's some aristocracy to the Uchiha Corporation. They deal with contacts and eyeglasses as well as specialist eye doctors, and they owned a chain of top notch medical facilities. Their family was one of the top ten richest families in all of Japan. The only thing that threw Sakura off was how an aristocracy like him would be at a school in Konoha, whether or not it was a private institution.

* * *

Without warning the home room teacher called Sakura up to the front to introduce herself. "Haruno, would you do us the honor of introducing yourself and telling us something interesting about yourself?"

"Yes sir." she said in a hushed quiet tone

"Very well, the floor is yours."

"Hi. I'm Haruno Sakura, but I prefer to just be called Sakura, and I'm not sure if there's something interesting about me that you all would want know…" she said with her voice wandering off in volume.

Right after she finished Ino mimicked the sound of thunder while giving her a "that's right, I went there" look.

Sakura quickly shot her a pissed off glare that made Ino chuckle. The rest of the students looked at each other puzzled as to what all that meant.

Before she walked back to her seat, Kakashi, the home room teacher smiled and said "you're the honor student aren't you? That's definitely something interesting!"

Sakura turned red with embarrassment as she heard someone say "well that explains how she's dressed." Then kids around the classroom started giggling. As she glanced over to who said that rude remark, she saw that it was the boy she was sitting next to. He never told her his name, but she knew he was obviously more popular then the other boys in the class.

She scratched the back of her head and said "heh…yea… I am, but it's not _THAT_ interesting, right?"

Right as those words left her mouth she saw people starring at her. They weren't staring at her with anger or spite, but with… amazement? She pondered what they all were thinking as she took her seat. She gave and irritated glance to the side where the black haired boy was sitting. He was definitely cute, but it seemed rude what he did just a few seconds ago.

He noticed her intense, irritated glare and said "I know your mad at me, but how about I make it up to you?"

Sakura started to feel her irritation subside and said "how?"

"Well lunch period is in ten minutes, and my sho-fur is outside. I could take you some where for lunch. How does that sound?" he offered.

"_Damn these rich people, their limos, sho-furs, expensive taste, and luxurious life style . . . most of all their conceited attitudes . . ." _Sakura thought to herself, but she kindly replied "that sounds wonderful" and gave him a smile

"just be sure to follow me quickly when the bell rings."

"Why is that?"

"You'll find out soon enough" as the boy let out a deep sigh.

Sakura was going far out of her comfort zone, she wasn't a total recluse, but going out to lunch with someone she just met a few hours ago and only started talking to a few minutes ago, isn't exactly a common thing for her.

"I haven't seen Uchiha-san talk to a girl and smile like that sense…. Never…." Shikamaru said

Then Ino looked at the pink haired girl and the aristocracy conversing with smiles on their faces. She definitely was going to talk to Sakura. Before Ino could even think of how she was going to get the truth out of Sakura the lunch bell rang and right as she looked over she saw Sakura and Sasuke bolt for the door at full speed. Ino's jaw dropped to the ground.

"_WHAT IS SHE THINKING?!?!?!?!?!.... She is so going to get an earful over the phone from me, or I might just go hang over to her place. . . . but either way I'm DEFINITELY getting some answers!"_ Ino thought as she saw Sakura's bright pink hair disappear from sight out of the doorway where the rest of the class was migrating for their lunch break.

"Hurry!!" Sasuke shouted at her.

"I'm trying!! It's not easy to run in heels!!"

Right after those words left her mouth she looked over her shoulder to see a horde of girls chasing them.

"so you noticed?" he said teasingly.

"how can I _not_ notice?! They're scary!!"

She was running at top speed making a new record for her time running in heels. As soon as she tried to speed up a little more to catch up to the boy's pace she lost her footing and felt as if her face and the floor were going to become good friends. Then at that moment she felt a tug on her arm. She looked up to see that the boy was grasping her hand firmly so she could keep her balance and keep up with him.

As they exited the building and jumped into the limo and closed the door, the driver rolled down the dividing pane between the front and the back and asked "where to today master?"

Sasuke looked over at the panting pink haired girl and said "what kind of food do you like?"

She thought for a moment and then decided "I'm not really a picky eater, why don't you decide sense you were kind enough to invite me out to lunch with you?"

He blushed, but turned to face the window so she wouldn't notice.

"_Hmmmmmm. . . this girl. . . she seems. . . different then the rest I've known. The second she stood up front and introduced herself. . . I felt something. . . and I just had to get her attention, so I was stupid and said something rude. . . At least it gave me the chance to take her out to lunch. Hmmmm. . . I know just the place!!"_ Sasuke thought to himself.

Then he looked at the driver and said "you know my favorite sushi place don't you?"

"of course I do!" the driver replied

"thank you, please take us there" he requested

"as you wish master" the driver replied and rolled the divider back up so he and the girl could have some privacy to chat without a third ear listening in.

The car was filled with awkward silence. An occasional glance was exchanged, but they always looked the other way when they caught the other looking at them.

"so" she said in an attempt to start a conversation "who were those girls that looked like they were going to mug you?..."

"oh, them." He said letting out a chuckle at the way she described them. "They're basically, my fan club. I don't want one, I never did, and I never will, but almost all the girls at this school are deranged and think that I'm supposed to marry one of them or something..."

"Why do you have your own fan club?!" Sakura said with a shocked look on her face.

He forgot. How would she know who he is? He never told her his name…. "I'm sorry, I never told you my name did I?"

"I guess you didn't, I was wondering when you were going to tell me." She said smiling at him.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke, but just call me Sasuke. I don't like being called by my last name."

"Oh, ok. And the same goes for me. I'm not a fan of my last name either." She said in agreement.

She suddenly realized who he was. It was the boy Ino wouldn't shut up about on the way to school! The aristocracy of the Uchiha Corporation!! She suddenly felt light headed, and Sasuke noticed.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concern written all over his face.

"Huh?.. yeah… just… a little shocked…" she replied

"_She's. . . shocked?. . .why? I haven't said anything offens- . . . that's right. I'm a some sort of icon. . . I guess she's heard of me. I wonder how this'll rub over now that she knows who I am. I wonder. . . should I test her?. . . . This girl is different from the rest. I want to find out if she's someone worth getting close to. I know just the place to take her too"_ he thought with a smirk.

"Why?" he asked her curiously.

"You're an aristocracy to one of the biggest corporations in Japan! And you just asked me to lunch!... It's just… I didn't think someone like you would even notice me… but now I'm glad I finally got to meet you!"

He turned a light shade of red and smiled at her saying "I'm glad I got to meet you too!"

"_The most interesting thing about her. . . she isn't drooling all over me. . . or trying to win me over. . . but she isn't being rude either. . . she's treating me like. . . a. . . real person. . . very few people do that. . ."_

Sasuke finally saw his favorite sushi restaurant in sight. "Are you ready to eat the best sushi you've ever tasted in your life?" he said with a confident smirk at what he was planning ahead for.

* * *

Sakura's face beamed with delight as she slid another piece of shrimp tempura in her mouth, she was careful to chew slowly and waited a few moments in between bites. She didn't want to have bad table manners around someone like Sasuke. Although she forgot that Sasuke was sitting directly in front of her at their little table in the restaurant.

When she finally realized he was there and looked at him, his gaze was fixed directly on her eyes, she looked at his plate and he was only about half way done eating. She felt really uneasy the way he was looking at her, it's as if he was taking a trip through her mind and her soul. It was intimidating and flattering at the same time. She tried to ignore it, still eating her food, but finally she couldn't take it.

"S-Sasuke, w-why are you looking at me like that..?" She asked a little uneasy.

He could tell that he'd made her uncomfortable, so he said "sorry, I was just thinking…" then Sakura just smiled. Then he asked "do you think that we could spend some more time together again?"

Sakura looked surprised, but was able to contain most of it, and put down her chop-sticks.

"Well you seem like a really nice person, and to be honest, my only friend is Ino right now. I didn't even have any friends at my old high school, I'm just not the social type I guess. That's why it's a rare thing for me to do something like this. You know, have lunch with someone I've only known for less then a day, but I would love to hang out with you again!"

"_but I'm glad you __did__ come to lunch with me.. . ." _Sasuke thought

"I'm not talking about hanging out, I'm talking about a date." He said in a semi serious tone that showed he was intent, but sincere.

Her face turned tomato red. Sasuke noticed and let out a small chuckle, and finally when she got a hold of her emotions she said "when?"

"_According to Shikamaru 'when?' is like a yes, but more specific."_ He thought to himself before answering her.

"I'm not sure, how about tomorrow? We don't have any school, and I don't have anything planned. You said yourself you only have one friend, so do you have plans?" Sasuke asked her. He said last part teasingly.

She blushed again without knowing it, and she felt a slight irritation for him mocking her lack of a social life, but she knew he was like Ino. He was only joking.

"Yea. That sounds good, what ti-"

He cut her off and said "I'll pick you up around 10:30am, if that's ok?"

She smiled at his smirked at his eagerness, then said "that sounds great."

He looked at his watch and said they were going to be late to class if they didn't hurry.

* * *

The last two students walked into class just moments before the late bell rang and headed to their seats, everyone's' jaws were dropped either hitting the table, or the floor. No one had ever seen Sasuke talk to a girl let alone take one out somewhere for lunch. They knew that he'd left campus for lunch, but they forgot that she was missing too. Then suddenly she reappears walking in with him... They all jumped to conclusions, especially the deranged fan girls.

Sakura was about to take her seat, then Ino firmly grabbed her arm, but not enough for it to hurt any, and whispered in her ear "I'll be coming over to your house later after school, so you can tell me what happened then, ok?"

Sakura nodded.

Ino took her seat next to Shikamaru.

The fan girls had looks on their faces glaring at Sakura as if she were a mouse and they were the snakes, who wanted to eat her alive.

When she caught hold of their glares she winced and Sasuke noticed and immediately glared back at them, which made them return their sinister looking eyes to their school papers.

* * *

The final bell rang marking the end of her first day and the students gathered their things, but Sakura was unaware of the dismissal time, so she hadn't packed up most of her belongings, unlike her fellow classmates who were all already leaving.

When she looked up she saw Sasuke standing in front of her with that same look from earlier at lunch. She looked up at him and asked "Sas- Saske… what is it?"

He realized he was staring again so he rubbed the back of his head nonchalantly and asked "can I walk you home?"

Sakura's face turned red again to match the shade of Sasuke's. She said "Don't you ride home? In that limo?"

Sasuke smirked "I'm actually fond of walking, but we couldn't walk to that sushi place and back and be on time for class now could we?" he said teasingly.

"oh, ok. I would like that, as long as it's not too far out of your way" she said timidly

"well, where do you live?" he asked

"my house is on Cherry Blossom Avenue, what about you?" she replied

Sasuke blushed at the fact that she lived only two miles from his house. "I live in the big yellow tinted house. It's maybe two miles away from where you live."

Sakura's face turned bright red because she recognized that it was walking distance. Her house was actually on the way to where he lived, so it wouldn't be a problem for him to walk her home. "Oh. I know where that is." She replied.

"So you got your stuff all packed up?" He asked.

"yea." She replied.

Then the two of them left.

* * *

"So how was school dear?" her mother asked. Sakura blushed and said that it was an ok first day. Then when she walked up to her room she found Ino sitting on her bed with her arms and legs crossed. Sakura's original inference was that Ino was mad, but when Ino stood up, her grim face turned to a smile.

"I see you've become quite popular with that big time Uchiha." Ino told her teasingly.

Sakura's cheeks turned a rosy red as the comment her friend just made.

Then she explained to Ino all that had happened that day since she stood in front of the class, Sasuke feeling bad about his remark and asking her out to lunch, the sushi place, and the date he asked her to go on, and him walking her home.

Ino's jaw hit the ground so hard Sakura thought that the hard wood floors were going to break. Ino gave her friend a sideways glance of envy. Then Ino made a confession of her own to Sakura.

Ino looked at her friend and said "To be honest Saku-chan… Sasuke is handsome and all, but almost all the girls in school are after him, so I set my sights on a more realistic goal. Besides, I think I like him better then Sasuke."

Sakura raised one eyebrow of interest and said "who are you talking about?"

Ino smirked with her eyes shut and said "Shi... Shikamaru…." Ino was glad to finally get that off her chest to someone.

Then Sakura smiled at her and said "that's a relief! I thought you were going to hate me for having a date with Sasuke tomorrow!"

Ino started laughing while saying "are you kidding?! _No_ guy is ever going to ruin our friendship!!" She smiled to reassure her friend and added "I also said I found someone I like better didn't I?... I mean… were not official, but I'm sure we'll get there… I think you should be worrying about that rabies infested fan club more then me."

After Ino finished those words she shot her friend a broad smile and asked "can I pick out your cloths for you date tomorrow?!"

Sakura started giggling and said "just don't make me look like a slut… I don't want Sasuke to look at me the wrong way."

Ino chuckled and said "well I'll just meet in the middle. He'll definitely take one look at you and say '_wow!!_' but he won't be staring awkwardly with too many bad thoughts in his head. That sound good Saka-chan?"

Sakura nodded while twitching with terror at the thought of one Ino's outfits for her… She was Sakura's best friend, but Ino can definitely take things to far sometimes, and clothing was one of them.

After Ino picked something out Sakura actually liked it and agreed to wear it.

Ino said "remember to wear your hair down, it looks better that way, only pin it up for school so you can see your work. mk?"

Sakura nodded again.

Then she and her friend started talking about the class day until Ino realized that it was time for her to go home, she called her sho-fur and was on her way out.

Sakura had never seen Ino help her with a boy so much. What shocked her even more is that it was her former crush. She was sure that Ino would have some sort of hard feelings.

* * *

Sasuke entered his house and took his shoes off only to find his brother Itachi standing there an inch from his face smiling.

"Why the hell are you so close to my face?!?!" Sasuke said irritatedly.

"Now Now little brother, that's no way to greet your superior!" Itachi teased.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and mumbled "you not _that_ superior, you egotistical suck-up."

Then Itachi just sighed and thought _"I wonder if I should tell him that I saw him walk a pretty little pink haired girl home today. I guess it can wait, it looks like he's nervous or upset about something. I probably shouldn't mess with him right now."_

Sasuke entered his room and turned the lights on setting his bag on his desk and walking to the other end of his room. He collapsed on his bed gazing up at the 20 foot tall ceilings, and the medium sized chandelier that lit his room.

And he began to think.

"_Is there even a chance that she likes me?. . . Not for my money or all the stuff I have?. . . Or my reputation?. . . . We've only known each other for one day, but I feel like I can say anything I want to her. I really had to hold myself back today. . . She was so pretty I accidently kept staring at her because I kept getting lost in those shinny emerald eyes of h-"_ *knock knock knock*

"Who is it?" Sasuke asked, not bothering to sit up and look for himself.

"Itachi... Is his royal crankiness going to permit me to enter his glorious presence?" Itachi said mocking his little brother's somewhat bad mood.

Sasuke sat up with a smirk and said "I guess I don't have a choice after those chivalrous words of yours."

Itachi walked over laughing and sat on the bed next to his brother and asked "Do you have any plans tomorrow?"

Sasuke nodded and said "sorry, what is it you wanted to do?"

"It wasn't important. I was just going to ask if you weren't doing anything that's all" Itachi said as he walked out.

Sasuke eyed his brother suspiciously as he walked out, then lied back down on his bed and set his alarm clock for tomorrow morning, then resumed his aimless thoughts until he was taken away by sleep.

* * *

**_To be continued. . . . ._**


	2. I Can't Believe That Just Happened!

**Chapter 2 – I Can't Believe That Just Happened**

Sakura's mother rushed to the door and opened it to find a casually dressed boy with black spiky hair standing on her doorstep.

"Good morning" Sasuke greeted her "I'm here to pick up Sakura, is she ready?"

"Oh dear… she didn't tell me she had a date today!! AHHH!! I'm so sorry!! I would've woken her up or at least made her set her alarm!!" she replied

*beep beep beep beep beep beep beep* "oh no!! my brownies!!" she fled to the kitchen filling with smoke, but managed to say "your welcome to go up to try and wake her if you want!!" before leaving the room.

Sasuke walked up the steps and saw a door half way down the hall with a pink sign on it that read "Sakura's Room" he walked over to it then noticed there was a message below is that stated "keep out!!" below her name.

Because of the statement in fine print below her name, Sasuke was hesitant to open the door, but he worked up the courage and managed to turn the knob and enter the room to find her sleeping soundly. He almost felt like staring at her instead of waking her up.

He walked over to her bed side and stood there for a minute. Then reached down and gently shook her shoulder saying "Sakura…. Sakura…. Wake up!!" but she didn't budge. He kept trying to shout her name and shake her shoulders, but nothing worked.

He gave up and sat on the bed staring at her face in complete repose. He wondered how to wake her up and it narrowed down to a few choices that would probably startle her, but he pick the least traumatizing one and leaned down and put his mouth a millimeter away from the opening of her ear and said "wake up Sakura…" with a slightly suggestive tone to it.

It worked, and Sakura woke up to find a Sasuke practically leaning on top of her with his breath filling her ear.

This caused her to shoot up like a rocket which made Sasuke move back to avoid being struck by her knees which she used to curl up in a ball to hide her crimson red face while making a strange moaning noise.

"_I can't believe that just happened!"_ Sakura thought to herself _"I mean he was practically on top of me!! IIIIIEEEEPPP!!!!!!"_

Sasuke suddenly started laughing uncontrollably. Sakura sat up and looked at him ti see why he was laughing, and then he saw her crimson face and started laughing even more.

She looked at him with a puzzled expression. Then Sasuke turned to look at her and said "I'm sorry. Your mother told me to come up here and wake you, and I tried calling and screaming your name, then I tried shaking your shoulder, and then I gave up and tried whispering directly in your ear. I knew you were shy, but I didn't know you were this squeamish!" and he continued laughing.

Sakura said in a soft little voice "meanie… I didn't expect you to do that… I didn't expect to wake up with you on top of me… Sasuke-kun"

Then Sasuke suddenly look away a little as he blushed forgetting that she had a point of view too, that was different then his, and the fact that she had added "kun" to the end of his name.

"Should I do something to make it up to you?" he said

She smirked malevolently at the idea, which made Sasuke a little uneasy "take me somewhere fun." She said.

Sasuke was constantly having his mind blown by this girl. She was different from all the other girls he'd ever known. She was crazy and timid at the same time, and what she wanted were real things, emotional things… things… that he could give her… This girl was real… not a fake magazine imitation like the girls that make up the crazy fan club.

"You got it" he said after he tapped her nose, which made her smile"

Sasuke started giggling again when Sakura sat up completely. "W-what is it Saske-kun?!" he kept giggling and said "you have the craziest bed head I've ever seen!" he said laughing.

She made an angry expression and started punching his arm playfully while they both laughed, but she punched a little too hard and he slid off the side of the bed. She attempted to catch him but he wound up getting drug out from under the covers of the bed onto the floor on top of him.

He was sitting half way up and she was sitting directly on top of him, both facing each other. She was sitting in a way that caused him to look down and suddenly turn redder then crimson.

Sakura, wondering what had caught his attention, looked down, remembering that the pajamas she was wearing were an oversized t-shirt and her underwear. So Sasuke was blushing at the site of her completely bare legs.

"_What's wrong with me!! I can't believe that just happened!! Why do these things always happen to me?!?! UGH!!!!"_ Sakura thought to herself as she watched his face turn completely red.

"_Woah. . . this isn't helping me hold in my feelings. . . . but it WAS an accident, I just hope no one walks in. That. . . . would be bad."_ Sasuke thought as Sakura was flushed red with embarrassment.

He immediately looked in another direction so he wouldn't feel like he was making her uncomfortable, but she remained seated on him. Then out of no where he feels this squeeze and he looks down to see her hugging him in a tender embrace.

"I don't care Sasuke-Kun, as long you don't…." Sakura said that out of sheer desperation… she didn't know what came over her, or what she was trying to say.

"_What's this?!. . . she's. . . hugging me?!. . . while she's. . . half naked?!. . . I kinda don't mind, but I don't think this is the right place for this stuff. . ." _Sasuke thought to himself silently enjoying the moment.

"Hey Saku-chan?" Sasuke whispered in a hushed voice.

"nani?" (it means "what" in Japanese) Sakura answered hoping she didn't have to let go.

Sasuke said "I really am enjoying this, but your mom is home, and what if she walked in on us like this… It could get ugly…" he knew he sort of ruined the moment. But that's better then someone walking in on them and having a lot more things get ruined.

"Oh, I get it. sorry." Sakura said while trying to pull her oversized t-shirt over her legs.

Sasuke got up and held out his hand, and she took it and he pulled her up and walked out of the room and waited out in the hall for her to get dressed.

"_I wish that didn't have to end that way. . ."_ Sasuke thought, moping over the spoiled moment they just shared.

_**

* * *

**_

"wow….." were the only words Sasuke could mutter at the sight of Sakura 5 minutes later. He'd never seen a girl look so attractive and conservative at the same time…

Sakura met his gaze and said "do you like it? Ino picked it out for me to wear."

Sasuke giggled at the image of Ino shoveling through Sakura's closet in search of an outfit, but waved it off and walked to the door with Sakura. Then she turned around and called out to her mom in the kitchen "bye mom, me and Sasuke are off!!"

And they both left the house, and Sakura, didn't have a clue where they were going.

"Um Sasuke-kun, Where are we going?" Sakura asked timidly.

Sasuke chuckled at her saying "I can't tell you just yet, but it's going to be a shame for you to have change out of that outfit of yours, I wish I could see it a little longer, but you can't wear it where we're going." He said suggestively, which gave Sakura the wrong idea.

"Sasuke your acting like a perv." She said playfully and bopped him on the head.

"Don't worry, it's not what you think it is, you'll be covered..." Sasuke said while he was chuckling at her.

As the two continued walking down the street Sakura noticed something. "Hey, for a rich kid you dress pretty casual, your wearing what all the other boys wear, jeans and a t-shirt." Sakura said half teasing, and half serious.

"It's because casual cloths are comfortable, and on top of that I only wear fancy cloths for formal events. I don't get why you said it as bad thing. I just like dressing this way." Sasuke told her in a normal nonchalant voice.

"I don't know. I didn't mean it as a bad thing. I guess I'm just not used to spending time with people. Ino's the only friend I have. Her, and then I have you..." Sakura said while facing the refreshing gust of wind that whipped her pink hair from her face.

"Why didn't you ever spend time with other people? How could you live without social interaction for so long?" Sasuke asked slightly concerned and mostly curious.

"That's easy… because every person I've ever had enough time to get really close to, has always hurt me in one way or another… to a point where I felt like I should stop breathing and just give up... They weren't the petty fights over stupid subjects like boys and stuff... They were deep... and brutally wounding…. Whether it was physically, mentally, verbally, or emotionally… what ever the form they tore me to shreds…. That's why I gave up on other people, till I met Ino. She's the only one that I ever truly trusted back then." Sakura said, staring off into the distance, almost nostalgic.

Sasuke felt a small sting inside his chest and said "I find that hard to believe that someone would ever hurt someone as innocent as you." In slight disbelief

Then she stopped walking and stood there with her eyes scrutinizing the sidewalk and said "you want proof?..."

Sasuke turned around and saw her just standing there and walked back a few steps to where she was.

Sakura bent down and slowly rolled up her right pant leg a foot or two, which revealed a gruesome bruise that was swollen and all shades of green and purple.

Sasuke, startled took a step back, having a hard time believing that someone would ever hurt her that way. _"I can't believe that actually happened to her!"_ he thought.

"A parting gift, from my ex…." She said, "I left him a few days before I transferred to the academy because I wouldn't be able to see him."

"Why would you ever get involved with a man like that?!" Sasuke said, almost in an irritated tone, but softened his voice. "You're so foolish… why would you ever be in any kind of relationship with someone like that?..." he said with a mixed tone of concern, sympathy, and frustration.

"because I didn't know any better… I'd never been in any other relationship before that… so I thought that it was just normal behavior… and I was scared to leave him… because of what he could do to me… he could kill me..." Sakura said while trailing off mumbling other things Sasuke wasn't picking up because he was too focused on how to make her feel better.

"Can we please change the subje-"

Sasuke cut her off by taking her in his arms and saying "I don't know who you've been with, or what you've become used to, but I promise that I will _never_ treat you like that…. I might get mad and yell at you sometimes… but I promise I will _never_ hit you"

He felt Sakura's tears beginning to dampen his shirt as he held her tightly. He had one hand around her waist, and the other around her shoulders.

Eventually the two let go of each other and resumed their typical stance.

Sakura was rubbing the tears off her face then Sasuke said "don't do that, you'll hurt your eyes"

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a little white handkerchief for her to use.

He said "here, use this" as he held it out to her.

She took it with a sad little smile sense she had just stopped crying.

Sasuke thought with a sad feeling in his gut_ "I wish she didn't have a reason to cry. . . I wish there was some way I could keep her from cryi__-__." _

"Sasuke-kun!!!" Sakura yelled as the bus doors were getting ready to close. He snapped out of his thoughts and jumped on the bus with Sakura at the last moment.

The two scanned the bus for two seats arranged so they could sit next to each other. The two spotted the last two adjacent seats and claimed them for their own.

Sakura was still tired, so she let out a yawn, unaware that Sasuke was looking right at her.

Sasuke thought for a moment then said "You know if you're tired you can just take a nap and use my shoulder as a pillow." He smirked "You know I won't do anything. I'm strictly hands off when someone sleeping."

"oh really?!" she said in a provocative tone, "then remind me how you woke me up this morning?"

Sasuke thought of a cleaver way to get out of it and said "well technically, I was never touching you until you started punching me."

Sakura just twitched her eyebrows in disbelief that he found a loop hole. He simply smirked then put his arm around her shoulder and made it so her head was against his shoulder. "Sleep, I can tell you're exhausted, there are dark spots under your eyes and you were a challenge to wake up this morning which means you're tired. Don't worry I'll wake you up five minutes before we're there, and it's a decent distance too… and I won't do anything 'funny'… okay?" Sasuke said.

"_I can't believe this is happening…"_ Sakura thought to herself.

She nodded her head, and then slowly fell asleep, with her slumbering mass up against him. He slowly put his head on top of hers but refused to fall asleep.

_**

* * *

**_

Around lunch time they reached their destination.

"Hey Saku-chan, rise and shine" Sasuke said while shaking Sakura gently, but it was no use. She was out like this morning, and he knew that he could pull the same trick to wake her up again sense he promised. The only choice he had was to carry her off. The bus driver wasn't going to wait forever. He'd been trying to wake her up for the past ten minutes. Ten more weren't going to make much a difference if she wasn't budging.

He stood up and gently scooped her up in his arms. He walked through the gates of the water park where there were a few families and a couple of people, he knew the crowd was low today sense summer was almost over.

Sasuke carried Sakura to the hotel inside the park and rented a room so she could lie down. It was the only size room they had left, and it only had one bed. The upside was that it was a king size, so they would be able to stay on their own sides.

He carried her upstairs and put her down on one side of the bed, took her shoes off, and gently slid her under the covers to keep warm. The park apparently had turned the air conditioning on too high and the whole hotel was freezing cold. Then he got on the other side and set an alarm for them to wake up in 2 hours.

Sasuke first took his shoes off then his t-shirt, which left him with his pants and his undershirt. Then he slowly drifted off into sleep.

_**

* * *

**_

Sasuke awoke to a beeping alarm clock with an obnoxious polyphonic tone to it. Then he woke up, turned it off, and rubbed his eyes. Then he saw Sakura standing by the window gazing out at the water park with a look of amazement on her face.

"This was the surprise." He said smiling.

"You mean a hotel room?..." Sakura said with her eyes twitching looking at Sasuke.

Sasuke got up and walked up behind her and leaned forward dwarfing her and putting his hand on the window while they both looked out saying "No. Bringing you here to the water park was the surprise."

Then he smirked and added "the hotel room is a bonus"

Followed by a bop on the head from Sakura.

"ow! I was only kidding!" he said rubbing his head where she had hit him reasonably harder then she normally did.

"then why _are_ we in here?!" She asked confused and slightly agitated.

Sasuke sighed and said "Because I tried waking you up for ten minutes on the bus and you wouldn't budge, so I had to carry you off the bus." Sakura started blushing. Then he added "and I couldn't just let you lie down on the side walk could I?" he said playfully. "So I decided to rent a room. They only had ones these size left, with one bed. But I was happy when they said it was king sized, so you could get space if you wanted it. And I was tired too, so I took a nap as well, if you didn't already notice."

"_I can't believe that just happened!! I wake up and were a hotel room. . . in the same bed. . . but at the same time. . . he was sweet and made it so I got the space I needed to be comfortable. . . It was sweet of him to do all of this, all because of my being tired. . . I guess I could be a little sweeter and try and pay him back some how. . ."_

Sakura stood still for a few seconds then tackled Sasuke with a hug saying "thank you… I know it must've been hard for you to give me my own space on half the bed and for you to carry me all the way up here… and taking me all the way out here for a surprise… to pay you back we can do what ever you want here…"

Sasuke hesitated but he first said "before I say this don't take it the wrong way. But sense we're now just going out to the water park, we'll have to leave in a few hours… it wouldn't be worth it unless we spend the night and have half the day tomorrow to spend here. You can kick me out of the bed and make me sleep on the floor if you want"

"_caz I just want to spend as much time with you as I can. . ."_

Sakura thought a minute, I'd have to ask my mom, but sense she's always out of it I don't think it'll be hard getting her permission what about you?"

"My parents own this place, so I don't really even need to ask" Sasuke said with a smirk.

"_These damn rich people. . . . ."_ Sakura thought to herself.

* * *

**_To be continued . . . ._**


	3. Those Eyes

Chapter 3 – Those Eyes…

* * *

"Hey…" Sakura said to the dark haired figure sitting in on of the chairs at a mini-table in the corner of the room. He seemed to be lost in thought, but Sakura's voice drug him back to reality.

Sasuke looked over at her and said "hm?"

"My mom said it was alright, as long as I'm back in time for dinner tomorrow." Sakura said nervously with a twitching smile.

"_I can tell she's nervous. . ."_ Sasuke thought to himself. _"I guess I'm just going to have to be blunt about my intentions. . ."_

"I'm not going to do anything to you Sakura." Sasuke said beginning to stand-up and look at Sakura with a look in his eyes she'd never seen before.

Sakura let out an inward sigh of relief, but she knew she was far out of her comfort zone regardless of what he said.

"so relax. I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to. I promise…" Sasuke said walking up to her.

Sakura stood up from sitting on the bed and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting embrace. Sasuke returned it, and a smile started growing on his face.

Then he had a thought about what just happened. _"Why was she thinking that I was going to do something to her?. . . I've never seen a girl so nervous like that before. . ."_

"ummmm… Sasuke-kun where are we going?" Sakura asked in an innocent voice catching up to Sasuke a few feet in front of her.

"You don't have a swim suit, and my family owns this place, so you can just pick on out whichever one you want." Sasuke said smiling.

Sakura blushed as she realized he was slowly clasping her hand. "thanks." She muttered quietly, with a broad smile looking up at Sasuke who saw her and started to blush himself.

"Wow." Sakura started looking around and commented "this place is like a little water town or something."

Sasuke smirked and said "more of a reason for you to stick with me." Then gave her hand a little squeeze.

When Sasuke stopped walking, Sakura stopped beside him. Then she noticed two young girl dressed as employees come out from a medium sized building and greeted "hello young master Uchiha. What can we do for you?"

"Here." He said breaking the hand hold and placing his hand on her back leading her towards the two employees telling them "I want you to help her pick out a swim suit."

"What about you Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke shrugged and said "I can go find one. I'll be waiting out here for you after I pick one, okay?"

Sakura nodded and was led inside by the two women, but she managed to steal one last glance at Sasuke before they entered.

_**

* * *

**_

"I like it" Sasuke said as he watched Sakura slowly step out from the building.

She blushed when she saw Sasuke in his swim trunks. He had a muscular build and attractive abs. "I like yours too!" she giggled.

He was wearing solid black swim trunks with a thick vertical navy blue stripe on each side and a small streak of silver between the two colors.

Sakura was wearing a light pink bikini with diagonal magenta stripes. It also had white flowers of different sized randomly scattered into the pattern of it.

Sasuke blushed as he studied the swim suit, but caught her emerald eyes gazing into his deep black ones. It caused him to blush a truer shade of red.

Sakura noticed and began giggling with her hand over her mouth in an attempt to conceal her laughter.

Sasuke just smiled and planted his hands in the pockets of his swim trunks.

The two began strolling down the huge cement pathways of the water park. Sasuke noticed that more people were beginning to fill the park. More people then he thought would be there.

"Can we go to the wave pool?" Sakura asked hesitantly after seeing a picture of it on a park billboard.

"sure.".

The two walked past the tables of the mini fast food joints located around the wave pool. Sakura's eyes glistened in awe. It looked just like the beach. Except the cement was painted to color of sand, it wasn't actual sand.

Sasuke walked a few feet ahead while Sakura still stood there frozen.

"you coming?" he asked.

"s-sorry, Sasuke-kun." She replied then jogged a few steps to catch up to him.

As they both started walking into the water they looked up to see the sun setting.

Just as the two were enjoying the scenery of the sky they hear a low tone but very loud beep coming from in front of them.

"Here, get back." Sasuke took her hand and led her to the shore of the wave pool.

"Why? What's wrong?" Sakura asked being confused by his reaction.

"That beep means the waves are starting up, and we're both tired. Plus, the ones later in the afternoon and evening are surfing waves. They're not meant to swim around in." He told her in order to justify his actions.

They went into the ankle-deep water if the shore of the wave pool and sat down in the water.

"It's so pretty out here…" Sakura said in a soft tone that Sasuke barely heard.

"_Why do I feel like I've felt this way towards her forever. . . when I've only known her for a few days?. . ."_ Sasuke started to ask himself, oblivious that Sakura had scooted closer to him and was leaning on him at an angle that made her head rest directly under his, both facing the same direction.

Sasuke blushed but smile at her. He looked up and realized that there were only ten people max wandering around the massive wave pool area, and the sun was practically gone except for a few sparse beams of light turning the sky a violet purple.

He also noticed Sakura slightly beginning to fade so he nudged her with his chin, which made her look up at him.

"W-what is it Sasuke-kun?" she said while thinking _"those eyes!. . . why does he look at me like that?. . . it makes me just want to melt. . ."_

He got up while saying "it's getting late, and the sun's almost gone.

Sasuke helped Sakura up and walked to a towel booth with Sakura following a few feet behind him.

He picked up a towel and unfolded it and spread it from arm to arm and said "come here" in a playful tone.

She walked towards him smiling. He raised it over her head and draped it around her. Then he gave her a quick hug and the two of them began heading back to the htel, when he realized they hadn't had anything to eat.

"Sakura-chan, do you want to stop at any of these places and eat?" he asked her moments before her stomach rumbled so loud that even he heard it clearly.

He raised a brow in a fascinated and amazed way at her.

"heh-heh… I guess I do" she said half laughing.

The closest place was a little antique looking pizza parlor. He took Sakura's hand and led her up to the entrance.

They both walked inside to find a table set for two just a few feet away.

There were two candles lit on a plain wooden table with a menu resting in the middle of each place setting.

"You didn't…" she said quietly but with a happy tone to it.

"I kind of did… I know you're not a fan of overly fancy things. So when I called them this morning before I came to pick you up, I told them to just add a few candles." He said with a satisfied smirk.

They approached the table and pulled her chair out for her

"_How did he know. . . that I like simple and casual things?. . ." _she contemplated to herself till something snapped her back. Sasuke was looking right at her eyes again.

"_those eyes. . . what is he trying to tell me?. . ."_

Sakura didn't know what to do so she just pulled her towel a little closer. Then her thoughts were interrupted by the waitor.

"Good-evening, have you decided on your meal?" the waitor asked.

Sakura, not knowing what to order just looked at Sasuke and said "I'll ust get what you do. I'm in the mood for anything."

He nodded and told the waiter "two cokes and two slices of pepperoni pizza, please."

"yes sir." The waitor bowed and walked back to the kitchen.

"so do you like your swim suit?" he asked teasingly.

Sakura blushed and managed to say "It shows a little more skin then I'd like, but you always seem to look at my face, so it doesn't bug me as much as it normally would."

Sasuke smirked and said "I can be a perv sometimes, but to be honest a person's eyes tell you more then certain parts of their body."

"_He's. . . not lke a lot of those boys I used to know. . . He's sincere. . . what am I doing?! I can't fall for someone on the first day!!. . . not after all the things boys have put me through. . . I can't throw myself at someone that easily. . . but at the same times I feel like he shouldn't have to suffer for their mistakes. . ."_ Sakura thought to herself as her drink and food were placed in front of her.

_**

* * *

**_

Sasuke could tell something was bugging her as they walked back to the hotel together, but he thought it best to let her decide when to tell him.

When they got back Sakura suddenly had this embarrassed look on her face and walked over the foot of the bed where Sasuke was lying down.

"um…uh…" Sakura stuttered trying to piece her puzzled words back together.

Sasuke sat up and looked at her staring at the floor standing in front of him.

"I kind of don't have any pajamas sense I wasn't planning on spending the night…"

Sasuke jumped off the bed and trailed over to his small overnight bag and pulled out a pair of pajamas

"I always keep an extra pair with me when I'm spending the night, just incase I need them. I had the main house send if over when we agreed on spending the night." He said as he handed them to Sakura.

"Arigato Sasuke-kun" was her thanks as she headed to the bathroom to change.

When she came back out Sasuke began to chuckle because his pajamas looked incredibly baggy on her. She smirked at him then rolled onto her side of the bed and slid under the covers.

Sasuke let out a small sigh of disappointment as he turned the tv volume down so it wouldn't keep Sakura awake.

A few minutes later… a flash of lightning lit up the room even though the curtains were closed.

Sakura shot up from under the covers and braced herself for the thunder, which shook the whole room. Sakura yelped and accidently fell off the bed. Sasuke got up while chuckling inside. He came over to were she was half hurled up crying a massive amount of tears without making a single sound…

Sasuke noticed how she was ravenously quivering, like she was having a seizure. He gently scooped her up into his arms and turned the TV off, then sat up on the bed and sit Sakura across his lap still holding her. Both of his arms wrapped around her. While the thunder raged on, Sakura became more and more terrified.

Sasuke hadn't seen any girl this scared, but he remembered overhearing Ino in class telling Shikamaru how Sakura was deathly afraid of something.

"_I guess it's thunder. . ."_

Sakura eventually wrapped her arms around him. One over his shoulder, and the other around his side, both ending up near is middle back.

Every time she heard thunder her hands clenched his shirt with such clinging force that it seemed like she was holding onto her life.

Hours passed and the storm still hadn't cleared. Sasuke adventually turn the light on his night stand off and lied down in front of Sakura, letting her skootch up behind him because she was still terrified. She wrapped her arms around his chest, and thunder struck again. This time she felt everything go black.

Sasuke half asleep suddenly felt like something was wrong. He realized that the storm was still going, but Sakura's grip had vanished.

Quickly, he turned on the night stand light and leaned over Sakura to see if she was ok. Her pulse was normal and her breathing was even, so he let out a sigh of relief that there was nothing wrong, she'd only passed out…

A little while later Sasuke was still up with his thoughts. He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head.

Suddenly he felt a stir from under the covers. As he looked over he saw Sakura come up next to him laying half on top of him on her stomach, and one of her hands just rested on his chest.

His eyes widened as she said "thanks Sasuke, no one's ever done that for me…" and he took a hand out from behind his head and wrapped it around Sakura. He slowly felt her fade while he continued to stare at the ceiling until his eyes forced themselves closed.

_**

* * *

**_

Sasuke woke up in the exact same position he fell asleep. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and looked at Sakura where the other one was.

He smirked and muttered "nebosuke" (it means "sleepy head" in Japanese) and thought _"I guess I got my answered prayer. . . I got to just hold her and be there for her when she needed me. . ."_

Sasuke turned his head to look at the clock. He realized that he had time to run out and bring back some breakfast for the two of them to eat in the room.

Sasuke got dressed, knowing she was asleep so it didn't matter, then left a small sheet of paper in her hand.

Several minutes later Sakura slowly opened her eyes and saw Sasuke was gone. As she say up to look around the room a note fell out of her hand

_Dear nebosuke,_

_I'm sorry if I scared you when you woke-up_

_And saw I was gone. I didn't want to wake_

_You up so I left to go get us-"_

Before she could finish reading the note Sasuke opened the door and saw her awake.

"Good morning nebosuke!" he teased.

She just rolled her eyes at the new nick name (sleepy head) and smiled seeing he was carrying some things.

"I guess you read my note sense your awake." He said eyeing the sheet of paper in Sakura's hand.

"No. you walked in before I could finish reading it." Sakura said with her groggy morning voice.

"I basically went out to pick us up some breakfast sense you were asleep. I didn't know if you would wake up before I got back so I left you a note… I thought we could eat some breakfast and then go explore the water park." He said with a smile.

She smiled back at him then yawned.

He pushed the mini-table along with the chairs a little further out from the corner of the room. Then looked at Sakura with her bed head and all and said "If you want to freshen up while I set up breakfast it's okay."

Sakura shrugged and walked over to the bathroom with her swim suit in hand.

A few seconds later she popped back out from Sasuke's giant white t-shirt covering her swim suit.

"uh….. ok?....." Sasuke said when he saw her.

"I'm sorry I just don't feel like walking around half naked until I'm actually going to be getting in the water or getting wet… sorry if I disappointed you." She said teasingly

he blushed then said "no. I get it, just take it off before we leave, so we don't have to carry it around while we swim and stuff."

She nodded and the both sat down for breakfast.

_**

* * *

**_

As Sasuke and Sakura walked down the paved pathways they bumped into a familiar figure.

"Sakura?!" Ino said with her head tilted in surprise, then noticed Sasuke and whispered in Sakura's ear "I thought the date was yesterday?!"

Sakura rolled her eyes then whispered to Ino and said "I'll explain later… but shut up about it until then, or I won't tell you."

Ino smirked and said "fine."

Sasuke was totally confused about what they were whispering but decided it was too much effort to ease drop.

As the two girls were talking another figure walked up and stopped beside Ino.

"Sasuke?!" Shikamaru said in puzzlement.

"Yea, what's up." Sasuke said as they both fist bumped.

Sakura raised a brow because she remembered how a lot of people in gangs would fist bump fellow members… but then again Sasuke was semi-famous, and wouldn't get caught-up in all that… _"would he?. . ."_ she thought.

"You know everyone else is here. Right?" Shikamaru said

Sasuke's face smirked and said "how about you round up the gang and meet me outside the 'spot'?" he said.

Shikamaru smirked and said "just what I was thinking." Then he turned to Ino and added "why don't you round up all the girls, and I'll go get the guys and meet you there."

Ino nodded and both left in separate directions.

Sakura's eyes widened at the mention of "gang" because she was just questioning about it. She tried to turn away from Sasuke's gaze so he wouldn't notice, but it was too late. He already did.

"_uh-oh. I totally forgot that I hadn't told her. . . __crap!__. . . how am I supposed to clean this mess up?!"_ Sasuke started thinking to himself.

The two started walking down a path and came to something that looked like a rock wall, but as she got closer she saw that it was fake plastic made to look like rock. And there was a sign on the door that said "no unauthorized access" which made Sakura turn to Sasuke.

"Um… are we breaking into here?..." Sakura said in a scared tone of voice looking up at Sasuke with questioning eyes.

Sasuke started laughing and pulled a slide card out of his swim trunk's pocket that had a yellow stripe on it. "I have complete access to everything in this park, including what's behind this door, and I'm allowed to bring who ever I want with me."

Sakura let out a sigh of relief that they weren't doing anything illegal.

After 5 minutes a crowd of about 10 or more people came up. Sakura almost hid behind Sasuke but he stopped her and as everyone looked at her he said "this is my girl friend nebosuke"

Sakura shot him an irritated glare at the nick name then everyone laughed.

After everyone got a good laugh he was serious and said "Her name's Sakura, be sure to introduce yourselves to her while you're in here. Try to make friends with her too, she's a nice girl."

Then he swiped the card and the door unlocked and everyone flooded inside. Sakura was amazed to see it was some kind of underground lagoon… It was like nothing she'd ever seen.

Then someone popped a CD out of a rack and slipped it into a slit in the wall then the whole place filled with music.

The lagoon had a circular pool in the middle with fake rocks to sit on around it and the there was a tennis court sized area behind that where there were different colored lights and a few people were dancing then to the left there was a litter looking pool that was bubbling and one person was in it. She guessed it was a hot tub. Then to the right there was a restroom. She also noticed that there was a little room with snacks and drinks in it in-between the hot tub and the dance floor.

Sasuke came up behind her and put his arm around her and said "what do you think?"

She was in absolute awe and said "it's wonderful!!"

Then he slipped and access card into her hand and said "this isn't as powerful as mine, but it gives you access to this place whenever you want. Make sure not to loose it." Then he just walked away.

She stared at it for a while then began talking to some of the girls that approached her.

"So did you make her one of us?" Shikamaru asked leaning up against the wall with Naruto and Kiba next to him.

"I don't think she's ready. I'm not sure she even likes gangs." Sasuke said while gazing at her talking and giggling with the other girls who were all running over to the dance floor.

"Well it's not like we do illegal things, we don't steal, we don't rape girls, we don't murder, we don't do anything like that. The only real bad thing we do is attack rival gangs, and all of the gangs in this area made a pact to never use lethal force, so no one's in any serious danger." Kiba said looking at Sasuke with an intense gaze.

Sasuke looked at the floor with guilt, which is exactly what Kiba wanted, as cruel as it was to bring up the pact that all the gangs made. They did it after that brutal fight last year between Sound Melody and Konoha Beat, in order to keep people from getting killed while fighting in gang fights.

"Besides, we mainly just dance against other gangs, we don't hardly ever resort to punching. We only do those kinds of fights when the girls are safely some where else so they don't get hurt" Naruto added.

"Yea. That's why we're able to have girls in this gang." Shikamaru said while glaring at Sasuke.

"At least see if she's any good before you decide to make her part of the gang. We can't just have a free loading member. She has to actively participate." Neji said while leaning against a wall about five feet away from the others.

Sasuke smirked at him and said "and how do you plan on doing _that_?"

Neji smirked back and said "you know what I'm thinking."

The others nodded and went over to the CD rack. Then Sasuke sighed while he watched her dance with the other girls. From the looks of it she knew what she was doing and seemed to be pretty good.

"hey nebosuke-chan!" Sasuke called her away from the other girls.

"what?" she asked him.

"dance with me, and give it all you got. Don't hold back. I wana see exactly how well you move." He told her ina semi-serious tone of voice

"why?" she asked tilting her head curiously.

"I'll explain later, just do it." he told her as the music began to play.

_Baby are you down down down down down._

_Down, down_

_Even if the sky is faling down_

_Down, down_

As the music played Saukra danced with Sasuke as the others watched in amazement.

"I'm sure he told her 'don't hold back' and it's obvious she's not" Shikamaru smirked while watching the two dance across the floor.

She danced with the lyrics and created her own twist a mix of interpretative by dancing to the meaning lyrics and free-style to the beat. Sasuke was amazed at how she could switch between to two.

When the word "down" was said each time, Sakura's back was to Sasuke and she made a hip movement getting a distance lower to the ground going side to side each time the word was said.

The others each smiled and nodded to Sasuke in approval as they finished the song.

_You ought to know, tonight is the night to let it go_

_Put on show (show)_

_I wana see how you loose control_

She bent her leg over Sasuke's making it look like an upside down "V" while sticking the other leg straight up in the air.

Right as she did this all the boys started hooting and hollering white whistling at the scene unfolding.

Naruto snickered "She is loosing control isn't she?!"

The other's joined in the laugh. Then every member of the gang gave a thumbs up which meant a unanimous vote "yes."

Sasuke looked at them with a smile then averted his gaze squarely on her, then pulled a necklace out of his pocket with the words "Konoha Beat" engraved on it. Then he put it around her neck and said "welcome to the gang."

Her eyes widened more then they ever have. Then she said "_gang_?...*gulp*"

Sasuke smiled at her and said "I'll explain what kind of gang we are in a bit. Trust me were not the bad kind that mug people."

Sakura smiled as best she could while everyone was clapping and coming over to ruffle her hair and give her praise. Sasuke looked especially happy. When she looked at him she got that feeling again.

"_Those eyes. . . he's trying to tell me something. . . but I don't have a clue what it is!"_

_**

* * *

**_

Sasuke took Sakura aside to a smaller room he kept for private conversations for people in the gang, because outside everyone can hear you.

"W-why are we in here Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked a little nervous looking around the small quarters of a room with a only a few chairs in the whole 10x10x8 foot room.

"Because I can bring you in here you nebosuke" he snickered.

Then his glance became less cheerful and averted to the lower left.

He was chewing on his words and said "look I'm going to tell you plain and simple what we do in this gang. We dance… but all the girls are aware of other things that we do… the things we don't do are steal, mug, rape, and murder. We don't ever get in trouble with the police, if they ever saw us they'd just give us a warning to pipe down. They wouldn't take us to jail or something… the basic rules for girls in this gang are as follows, and even though you're my girlfriend you no exception:

1. you can't go anywhere that's even remotely dangerous without being escorted by a male gang member

2. you can't associate with anyone from any other gangs, the only connections are between leaders of the gangs

3. when there's a fight, you get the hell away with the other girls. Even though we mainly dance, sometimes the other gangs do things to start a fight with us, and the girls have to go to safety to keep from getting hurt.

4. You have to show up to al practices in the dance studio at my house. There are only a serious few exceptions for missing a practice.

5. If any of the above rules are broken there's a punishment inflicted on the rule breaker. A harsh one…

I don't want to tell you because it's pretty brutal… the punishment for guys is different then girls… but we've only had to punish two girls ever. Don't worry, we don't kill you or beat you within an inch of your life, but it's still bad enough for me to not want to tell you. At least I don't want to tell you for now…. And now that you're involved with this gang there's no getting out…. That's the 6th rule… you're in it for life…"

Sakura blushed but then realized _"that's what his eyes were trying to tell me. . . the punishment or whatever it is. . . it's bugging him that it now can be inflicted on me. . . if he doesn't want to tell me. . . I'm not sure I want to take a chance and break a rule and wind up getting punched or something. . . but either way if I don't break the rules there's nothing to worry about."_

"one more thing" Sasuke started to talk again "you'll need to give everyone in the group your cell phone number, and get theirs as well, for communication purposes." He said in a serious tone that almost made him sound like a business man.

_**

* * *

**_

_To be continued. . . . ._


	4. Goodbye I love you Goodbye I'll Miss You

Chapter 4 – Good Bye I Love You, Good Bye, I'll Miss You

* * *

Sasuke led Sakura out of the tiny meeting room earning him sideways glances from his fellow gang members.

Ino came over and swooped Sakura away to the side to chat.

Then Shikamaru nudged Sasuke off to another part of the hang out spot.

"Soooo… you gunna tell me?!?!" Ino asked her friend with an excited look in her eye.

Sakura shrugged guessing that she didn't have much of a choice. She told Ino about how he woke her up the morning of the date, the bus ride and how she fell asleep, the hotel room, the thunder storm, and every other juicy detail Ino wanted to hear about.

"You're not telling me everything" Ino said winking at her best friend.

"I've told you everything Ino! I swear!" Sakura said half irritated.

"I find it hard to believe that he didn't lay a hand on you…" Ino said glaring at Sakura.

Sakura got an uneasy feeling and said "what do you mean?" quietly.

Before Ino could respond to her friend's question Sasuke suddenly appeared out of nowhere next to Ino covering her mouth and said "that's… enough…" in a serous tone that almost made Sakura wince.

Everyone in the gang looked at the floor to avoid Sasuke's gaze. He simply removed his hand from over Ino's mouth and walked back to Shikamaru.

Ino looked sadly at her friend who was even more frightened then before and Ino said "he's the leader of this gang… so what he says goes…"

When Shikamaru nudged Sasuke to the side he said "you didn't tell everything, did you?" in a smug tone knowing he was right.

"I didn't want to scare her… I will eventually… but first I want her to get used to us… get used to this sort of life style…" he said with his voice trailing off in different directions.

"Fine, but if you wait too long, you'll hurt her…" Shikamaru said, and started walking away then stopped and added "I know you're trying to protect her… but you might be doing more harm then good…" and walked away towards Kiba and Naruto who'd found something amusing that Shikamaru was curious about.

Sasuke was looking at the floor up against the wall with his hands in his swim trunks and one foot up against the wall behind him.

"a-are you okay S-sasuke-kun?..." Sakura said stuttering looking up at him from under his hanging head.

Sasuke smirked and said "think fast nebosuke!" and tackled her into the center pool with him earning laughs and smirks from all his fellow gang members.

Sakura stood up in the chest high water with a mad look on her face, but she saw everyone laughing and having a good time, so her frown slowly turned into a smile.

Sasuke helped her out of the pool when Sakura suddenly realized _"he called me his girlfriend earlier… we've only been on one date… does that make us official or something? . . ."_

He noticed her deep in thought and said "What are you thinking?..." while turning to face her "it's written all over your face…"

Sakura blushed then turned to face him as well, saying "um… you called me your girl friend earlier… when you introduced me to the gang…"

Sasuke knew what she was getting at and smirked saying "I've carried you asleep, we've spent the night in the same room in the same bed, you've worn my pajamas… sounds official to me" he said laughing but realized Sakura was becoming irritated at his sarcasm.

"I called you my girlfriend so the other boys in the gang wouldn't hit on you. I didn't want them to make you uncomfortable. If you want me to say we're just friends, not going out, I can. They seem mellowed out now anyway." he added, sadly looking around the hangout watching his friends dance and laugh.

"_even though it'd hurt me. . . I'd still do it. . . for you. . ."_ he quietly thought to himself.

He approached the group of laughing teens who averted their gaze to Sasuke to listen.

"Hey… Sakura isn't my girl friend, we're really only friends. I said it," turning to the boys in the group "because she's extremely shy and I didn't want anyone overwhelming her with pick up lines." Earning chuckles from all the boys.

Shikamaru just looked at him knowing that as those words were leaving Sasuke's mouth… they were killing him a little inside…

Sakura felt a little bad and said "I'm sorry if it upset you. I'm… just not ready for a boyfriend..." she saw his disappointed face and said "but I do really like you Sasuke-kun!" she said with a smile.

"_I just want to clear my mind of the past. . . so his mistakes. . . won't affect you. . ."_ Sakura thought inside her head.

_**

* * *

**_

Sakura walked into class with a bloody lip and a swollen left cheek, and her uniform had splotches of dirt on it.

Sasuke's eyes widened at the sight of her as she took her seat next to him.

He decided to start out with "so you got your school uniform?"

She smiled, and winced from the pain, but said "sort of… it's Ino's spare uniform. She gave it to me."

Then he closed his eyes and said "what happened to you anyway? You look like you popped out of the ground."

She sweat dropped thinking _"he noticed. . ."_ then she quickly said "I fell down and accidently rolled down a hill" while rubbing the back of her head.

Later as the lunch bell rang and Sakura left Sasuke was going to walk after her but Ino grabbed his arm.

"Those fan girls mugged her…" she said looking down. "Sakura's clumsy, but she's not that stupid…"

Sasuke looked at her and asked "do you know where she ran off to?..."

Ino said "the roof… she goes there when she gets sad, upset, or just wants to think…"

Sasuke bolted down the hall thinking _"I hope I'm not too late. . ."_

He jogged up the stairs but stopped when he heard something. He stepped quietly the rest of the way up

Letting out a sigh of relief that the fan girls hadn't followed her, he saw Sakura singing a song that seemed to have a melancholy melody to it.

(some of you might not know what the song sounds like so here's a link)

_I, have had the same dream, many times,_

_It haunts my mind._

_It starts, with a life,_

_But it ends, every time._

_Oh so many faces, that, this world will never see._

_A reason for your life, but your heart, will never beat._

Then she went into a stuttering chorus, so he knew she was crying even though the door was cracked. But she managed to keep the melody and continued singing

_May the tears fall down. . ._

_Let them soften this ground. . ._

_May our hearts, be found. . ._

_God, forgive, us now. . ._

Sasuke's nostalgia kicked in as he heard the name "God." He hadn't heard it in a long time, not sense he last saw his grandmother.

He stepped out onto the roof, and said "don't lie to me… I know what happened… I know why you look like a mess…"

Sakura looked at the ground with guilt and said "I'm sorry… I just didn't want to make it anyone else's problem…"

Sasuke looked over to see the choker necklace that identified her as a member of Konoha Beat and asked "so you're going to officially be part of our gang?" eyeing her necklace.

She cringed at the last word "gang" then put her hand over the necklace and said "I don't think I have much of a choice… you said I was in it for life… and none of you seem like cut throats that hang in back alleys… so I guess so…"

He grinned at her saying "we have practice after school today… we're all going to my place where the dance studio is… You need to come too."

Sakura said "ok." Then thought of something and said "who all is in the gang?" with a raised brow.

"I knew you were going to ask." He said then thought of the names and listed "Me, you, Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto are in our class. Then Hinata, Shino, and Kiba are in another class, but they're in our grade. Then Neji, Ten-Ten, and Lee are seniors."

Sakura counted eleven people and said "wow… I didn't know there were that many people… so do other gangs have this many people?!"

Sasuke leaned against the door shocked about her enthusiastic questions about gangs, and said "no. the Sand Stompers only have three, and the Sound Steps have about as many as us, and some gangs have more then us. When it comes to dancing numbers don't matter, but when it comes to fighting sometimes it can mean the difference between a few bruises and landing in the hospital."

Her eyes widened, and Sasuke noticed, trying to find a way to calm her down.

"Don't worry. The girls only dance, there's nothing for you to worry about…"

_**

* * *

**_

*ring!*

As the final bell rang all the students were putting their things away. Then when Sakura bent down to pick up her bag, Kakashi caught a glimpse of her necklace and thought "_Not another one. . ._ _that's the last thing I expected from her. . . and it's the last thing I need to deal with. . ."_

"Haruno, can I have a word with you?" Kakashi asked in a happy tone.

Sasuke eyes his home room teacher suspiciously and turned to Sakura and said "I'll be waiting for you out in the hall…" shooting Kakashi a glare before he left.

"Sakura, you haven't been in Konoha Beat for very long have you?..." Kakashi asked with his tone suddenly turning serious.

"Uh…no, not really…" She said stuttering.

"Consider leaving… it's not as safe as you think it is… just by joining, you've made yourself a target to members of other gangs…"

Flash Back

"1. You can't go anywhere remotely dangerous without being escorted by a male gang member."

Kakashi noticed that he had struck something inside her heart then added "I can't make you leave… just don't get yourself in too deep to not be able to come back up for air…"

Sakura nodded.

Kakashi suddenly returned to his happy-go-lucky tone and said "your dismissed Haruno"

She walked into the hall with Sasuke waiting for her. "What did he say?" he asked trying to hide his anger at Kakashi.

"Oh…nothing really… he just wanted to know if I was getting along with the other students…" Sakura said in reply.

Sasuke stopped walking in the hall and slammed the side of his fist into wall saying "_Damnit_!!!! Didn't I tell you on the roof earlier not to lie to me?!?!... Tell me the truth!!" he said angrily, slightly raising the normal volume of his voice.

"_How did he know?!. . . is he a walking lie detector?!. . ."_ Sakura shouted at herself in thought.

She stopped walking, her back still to Sasuke. Hesitantly she opened her mouth and said "he told me to consider leaving the gang…" Sasuke's eyes grew angrier as she continued "he told me it wasn't as safe as I thought it was… he told me if I decided to stay… to just not get in over my head… that's it… I swear that's everything he said…"

He knew she was telling the truth this time, because her shoulders were shaking and her breathing was uneven. She was crying…

"Don't worry about it… I know you're not crazy about gangs… but I promise I won't let anything happen to you…" he said while taking her in his arms in a hug as she tried to stop crying.

The two walked outside to find the other nine members quizzically eyeing Sakura's damp face. Sasuke waved the subject they were going to ask about, so they all shrugged and began walking to his house.

"Wait!" Sakura said as they were passing down a familiar street "I need to tell my mom where I'm going so she won't worry. I also want to change out of this uniform… into something more suitable for dancing…"

Sasuke nodded and the group waited in front of the house.

Sakura bolted up the stairs and dug through her closet to find a pink tank top and her favorite magenta jean shorts. She threw on some sneakers, and pinned up her hair.

"Sakura how late are you going to be out?" Her mother asked.

Sakura shrugged and said "not too late, I'll be home around dinner. Ok?"

"Alright, I guess that gives me time to go out and do my window shopping for the day. Have fun dear!"

As Sakura was running out the door she said "I will!"

Sasuke saw her outfit and immediately turned red in the face.

Ino smirked at her and said "that's a pretty bold outfit Sakura"

Sakura stuck her tongue out at her best friend and said "summer's almost over, I wanted to wear this outfit one last time before it got too cold!"

Ino just rolled her eyes and they all continued walking.

_**

* * *

**_

"Alright guys, put your bags down over there. I'll go put some music on. Pick a warm up partner too." Sasuke ordered.

Everyone set their bags with a spare change of cloths and water and sweat towels inside, over to the side of the dance studio as Sasuke instructed them, and began stretching.

Sakura looked around in awe. She saw that there was an upper balcony that could hold about 20 people who were just watching. Then there was some sort of touch pad on the wall that Sasuke was pressing buttons on. Suddenly the speakers in the roof above their heads, the ones hanging from the balcony, and the ones on top of the 10 foot high mirror on the front wall all started playing music. The floors had a brilliant shine to them, and Sakura could almost see her reflection in them.

"Nebosuke you should be stretching." Sasuke said coming up from behind her.

"um… how?" Sakura said still taken with the expensive looking studio.

Sasuke said "you need two people, one to balance the other while doing stretches, and you switch back and forth until you're both done."

"oh." She said understanding what she was supposed to do, but wondering how.

Sasuke saw the look on her face and said "look over at Kiba and Neji." She turned to look at them stretching. Kiba was on his back with his legs being stretched backwards by Shino who was leaning on them and keeping Kiba flat on the ground.

"Start by doing what they're doing. So lie down on your back and bend you legs as far back as you can without lifting your butt off the ground then I'll push on them." Sasuke said, in a shockingly serious tone.

Sakura did as he said and got on her back while lifting her legs as far over as she could. Then Sasuke got on his knees, and started leaning forwards saying "tell me when it starts to be pinch."

Sakura nodded, and a few moments later when her feet were an inch from her face she said "it kinda stings now."

Sasuke said "mk. Now count to 10"

"_He's enjoying this isn't he?"_ Sakura thought to herself in an irritated tone.

"1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10" she counted out loud.

Sasuke said "good, now it's my turn." He said as he got on his back and instructed her on how to lean forward so she wouldn't accidently hurt him. Then once he'd counted to 10 the both stood up.

"Now just stretch your arms yourself." He told her while stretching his.

After everyone in the team was done stretching Sasuke said "alright, pick a partner, and do warm-ups" as he walked over to the touch pad to pick another song.

She recognized it immediately and smiled.

_1 2 3 4!_

_Hey, hey,_

_Forever._

_Hey, hey,_

_Forever._

Sasuke walked over and almost passed Sakura when she grabbed his arm and asked "wana be my warm-up partner?" with a smile.

He sheepishly smirked and said "guess I don't have much a choice." Which earned him an insulted look from Sakura then he said "I'm kidding…"

He took her hand in his and placed the other on her hip, and she put her free hand on his shoulder.

_It's you, and me,_

_Moving at the speed of light into eternity._

_Tonight, is the night,_

_You'll join me in the middle of ecstasy._

As she looked into his eyes and hearing those lyrics made her blush. Sasuke just smirked and let go of her side so she could spin.

_Feel the melody and the rhythm of music around you (around you)_

Then when she returned from the spin she faced the same direction as him while standing next to him. Then he put his left hand on her lower back and held her right hand in his right hand with his right elbow bent giving the illusion that he was almost pulling her in front of him. Sakura, not knowing what to do with her left hand just placed it over his left hand on her lower back, as the chorus was playing.

_It's like I've waited my whole life, for this one night._

_It's gon' be me you and the dance floor._

_Cause we only got one night,_

_double your pleasure, double your fun._

_And dance forever-ever-ever_

_Forever-ever-ever_

_Forever-ever-ever_

_Forever (forever)_

_Ever-ever-ever_

_Forever-ever-ever_

_Forever-ever-ever_

_Forever on the dance floor_

"Why does everyone stare at us when we dance?!" Sakura asked almost irritated.

Sasuke chuckled and dipped her down causing her to balance on one leg and hold the other in the air. And he held one of her hands in one of his, and the other hand on her back, holding her a foot above the floor. Then leaned his head down to whisper in her ear "because we dance that amazing together" right into her ear.

She squealed on accident because it freaked her out when he did that, and it made her loose her footing causing her to fall, and Sasuke along with her. Sasuke caught himself on his hands and knees. Sakura sat up from lying on the floor not realizing Sasuke was above her because her hair came undone and it was down and in her face. Then when her forehead pressed against his she froze.

"LOOK AT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!" Naruto and Kiba yelled from the other side of the room pointing and laughing at Sasuke and Sakura.

They both sweat dropped as everyone's gaze was fixed on them in the same pose they'd held for at least the past minute.

"That's not very polite of you to stare at them." Lee said to Kiba and naruto slightly irritated at their immaturity.

Sakura, completely embarrassed, slid out from under him and stood back up brushing her cloths off and checking to make sure her outfit hadn't shifted an inch from where it looked perfect.

Ino held a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but Sakura saw her and said "just laugh already Ino, I can see you."

Everyone had a good laugh over the accident then resumed practice.

_**

* * *

**_

"That was a great everyone! But I've noticed a few things that I want to address before we go, so you can improve them on your own time before our next practice.

1. Kiba, you need to keep in time with the people around you, even a slight deviation in your timing throws the person next to you out of rhythm till the whole group follows

2. Lee, try to keep your movements in closer, so you don't hurt anyone. mk?" Lee nervously chuckled as he looked over at Shikamaru who was rubbing a red mark on his face that Lee had given him from kicking him in the face during their new routine on accident.

"3. Sakura, your moves are too sweet and fluid when we get to the stomp steps, you need to roughen them up and make them more ridged and fierce to go with the beat of the music.

Lastly 4. Neji, try to keep your eyes ahead and not on your feet, you should be confident enough in your steps to not have to focus on what they look like. If you aren't, then practice and memorize them some more till you are.

That's it, I'm finished, good job."

*crash!* everyone's gaze shot over to the door which swung wide open with something pink suddenly disappearing through it.

"Man, she was eager to leave…" Shino said fidgeting with his glasses pushing them slightly up.

Ino who was by the door turned around to look at the others, _"this isn't good. . . they all care about Sakura, but I can't let all them rush to help her. . . I guess I'll just tell Sasuke sense that's the only person besides me that she truly cares about. On top of, that I need to help my family with the party tonight. . . so I can't check on her myself. . ."_

As the last of the members were exiting the room Ino approached Sasuke and said "I know that you're thinking about how Haruno busted out of here and looked like she was running for the hills… something's up… something serious… otherwise she wouldn't make a scene like that… sadly, I can't go help her, because my family has a party tonight, and I apparently have to attend *sigh*… but I'm sure you'll find out what's going on."

And she left Sasuke, who was staring at Sakura's bag on the other end of the room, the only bad left in the studio...

_**

* * *

**_

Several hours later Sasuke heard his phone go off, and recognized the ring tone.

"_Sakura. . ."_ he told himself as he ran to the other side of the room to answer it.

On the other end of the line was a voice who was hysterical and he couldn't understand a single word she was saying as she was hyperventilating while trying to speak at the same time.

"Sakura…. Sakura!! Calm down!! Where are you?!"

He only understood one word she said to him over the phone "hospital."

He froze then said "stay where you are. I'm coming" and hung up the phone bolting out the door with car keys jingling in his hand. He took the black BMW and raced towards the hospital thinking _"is she hurt or injured?. . . I could only understand one word she said. . . what ever it is. . . it isn't good. . ."_

He ran into the hospital panting. The nurse at the receptionist desk raised a brow and said "who are you looking for?"

"h-ha-haruno" he said still trying to catch his breath from running through the parking lot from his car, about 4 football fields away.

"floor 2, room 268, it's down the hall to the right when you get off the elevator."

"thanks."

He bolted off towards the elevator and continually pressed the button for one to come down. Eventually he heard a "ding!" and the doors opened and he pressed the 2nd floor button. As son as the doors of the elevator opened he ran down the right hallway skimming the numbers till he came to a halt after seeing the number "268".

Sasuke cracked the door to find Sakura sobbing by someone's bedside. He recognized it as her mother...

He heard Sakura continually say "good bye, I love you… good bye, I'll miss you..."

"_no wonder she was hysterical and irrational. . . her mother's. . ."_ he looked over to a nurse standing next to him who shook her head, _"dead. . ."_

He entered the room careful not to startle Sakura or upset her. He came down on his knees next to her and before he could even put at arm around her or try to hug her she tackled him sobbing saying "I…" then passed out before she could finish her sentence.

The nurse looked at him then averted her gaze to the young girl who seemed to be asleep in his arms and said "poor child… no one deserves this…"

Sasuke watched her walk out after she said that, then called Ino, and told her what had happened while Sakura was still passed out in his arms.

Ino got permission from her parents to leave the party after she told them what had happened. She changed into her casual cloths and made her sho-fur floor it to the hospital as fast as he could.

When she came into the room she saw Sasuke with his eyes closed resting his head on top of Sakura's… who was still passed out in his arms, both by the bed of a woman with multiple bloody bandages. When she looked at the pulse monitor it was flat. Ino burst into tears saying "I can't believe this… girl still manages to smile…"

Sasuke said "tell me everything you know about her family ties, her home life, and what her life was like before she came to our school."

Ino took a deep breath knowing Sakura was going to hate her for this but said "Sakura's parents were madly in love with each other… but before they were married she got pregnant with Sakura… and both of the families were furious with the two of them. Sakura's mother's parents disowned her, kicked her out of the house, and told her to make it on her own… and eventually her father's parents did the same… then the wedding came and her mother was half way through the pregnancy… then when Sakura was 8, her father was shot by a back alley robber… and died… so Sakura doesn't have many memories of her father. Her parents were never on speaking terms with their parents… so Sakura's never met any of her extended family. Her mom was all she has… well had… there's not much left to say about her family… and then a few years back she thought she was hiding it from me but I knew she had an abusive boy friend. When I came over she would brag about how awesome and cool he was. Every time I saw her she had new bruises, and she's not clumsy enough to make them the shade of purple that they were… she wasn't very good at hiding things and eventually I told her mother, who spoke with Sakura and convinced Sakura to end the relationship. After all that abuse…. I have no idea how she's able to hide it all and smile…"

Sasuke started to let a few tears drop from his eyes, but before he could stop himself they turned into a river… _"I can't explain it but I'm feeling her pain, I'm hurting with her. . . even though I wish I could hurt __for her__ of her. . ."_

"Why don't you take her back to your place? Mines too far from school for her to walk like she likes to, and something tells me that she'll need to pick up her stuff from her house, and it'd be easier to do that from your house. Plus I can't walk into a party with a passed out girl in my arms" Ino said smirking trying to cheer Sasuke up.

"I guess. I just hope she isn't mad when she wakes up…"

Sasuke carefully carried her out to his car and opened up the passenger's seat with his foot and gently set her inside putting a jacket he had hanging over the back of the seat on her like a blanket. Then he quietly closed the door and got in on his side and drove home.

As he pulled up he saw Itachi standing in the drive way, when he rolled down the window Itachi started to say loudly "DID-"

Then Sasuke cut him off with *SSSSHHHHHHH!!!!* and pointed to Sakura in the passenger seat.

"Did you have to take the BMW?" he said in a hushed tone. "and why is there a girl in your car?!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and got out walking towards where Sakura was and said "I'll explain in a minute, just take this car inside will you. I need to take her to the guest room."

Itachi caught the keys Sasuke threw at him before picking Sakura up from the passenger's seat and closing the door with his foot.

"watch the paint!!" he said almost yelling.

Sasuke ignored him and walked towards the house, where a servant opened the door for him and said "oh my…" and watched him walk down the hall way with an incapacitated pink haired girl in his arms.

Sasuke walked down the hall to the guest bedroom that was right next to his own and pushed the cracked door open. He set her down on the bed, took her shoes off, and carefully slid her under the covers. He looked at her puffy tear-streaked face and sighed saying "nebosuke" then walked out.

"Why is there a passed out girl in the guest room?!" Itachi said in a stern tone of voice.

Sasuke sheepishly grinned and said "would you rather she sleep in my room?" sarcastically.

Itachi rolled his eyes then stood up from his seat on the couch and stood in front of his brother and said "you tell me everything now or I'll send her out of here, I own this estate, there's nothing you can do to stop me…"

Sasuke hated it when he pulled that card. Sense Sasuke wasn't on speaking terms with his parents he had to live with his older brother, and had to do what ever his brother said in order to stay.

"H-her name is Haruno Sakura, and I've been friends with her for a little while. On top of that a few hours ago she called me on the phone hysterical and the only word I understood was 'hospital' so I took off with the keys to the BMW because it was parked out on the end of the driveway. I ran through the hospital to her room where I found her on her knees by her dead mother's bedside. I went in to comfort her but before I could do anything she tackled me and tried to say something, then passed out before she could. Her friend Ino came after I called her and she told me that  
Sakura's dad died when she was only 8, and her mother wasn't on speaking terms with her parents, and neither was her father. So her mother was all she had. Now she has nothing… When I came into the room she tackled me and tried to say something but passed out… then Ino told me to let her spend the night here… I don't think that's too much to offer a girl who's going through hell right now, do you?" he said the last part sarcastically.

Itachi sighed and said "she can stay for a while, but just promise me you won't try anything 'funny'… if you get what I mean"

Sasuke nodded then said "I might occasionally scare her awake… sense that's the only way to get her up…" remembering the morning he took her out on the date and had to whisper in her ear and startle her "but other then that, I don't plan on doing anything."

Itachi said "good. Keep it that way."

_**

* * *

**_

Sasuke walked into Sakura's room a few minutes before he planned on going to bed and noticed she was pale. He placed a hand on her forehead and said "why is she so warm?!" not noticing his brother Itachi leaning against the doorway of the room.

"It's shock induced fever." He said coming into the room standing near his brother. "It happens to people after they go through a traumatizing event… I think it's safe to assume that's why she has a fever…"

Itachi noticed a seriously worried look on his brother's face and said "I'm not ecstatic about this idea, but if you're worried about her… I'll let you sleep in here tonight on a cot on the floor, next to her bed, so you can keep an eye on her… If her condition gets worse come wake me up." he said as he was walking out of the room.

Sasuke called some servants and told them to get a cot with sheets, a thermometer, a bowl of ice cold water with a washcloth, and a small bed-side light.

After he was done changing into his pajamas he came back to her room and saw all the things he'd asked for arranged. He turned the bedside light on and set the ice cold bowl of water on the desk near the bed and rang out the washcloth that was in it and set it to the side. He picked the thermometer that was next to the bowl of cold water and held it in her mouth while his hand was on her forehead.

"_where am I?. . . where's mom?!. . . what's happening?!. . ."_ were the thoughts in Sakura's head while she slowly opened her eyes seeing the wall of solid bright white fade away to Sasuke leaning over her with a look of concern on his face. Then she felt a hand on her forehead and something metal and uncomfortable in her mouth.

"Hold still and stop squirming, and don't spit the thermometer out of your mouth." He said while she was slowly waking up. He felt like he was dealing with a 4 year old when he said that, but she was so weak that she could hardly move anyway, let alone have the strength to fight with him.

"102.3… you're definitely not going to school tomorrow…" Sasuke said as he read the thermometer and set it back on the desk while he picked up the ice cold wash cloth.

He placed it on her forehead, and then just looked at her allowing himself to get lost in her half open eyes.

"I… I lost my home again…" she said with her eyes barely open and her voice softer then wind…

Sasuke immediately widened his eyes and felt like hugging her, but knew she was too weak to return the embrace, and he might accidently hurt her while she was this fragile.

"It's sad… but there'll be sadder things…" she continued… "like… if I don't graduate from college… like I promised her I would…" Sasuke assumed "her" was Sakura's mother, and felt his eyes beginning to water as she rambled on "and I promised her that I would never abandon her, I swore on dad's grave ever sense I was 8… that I would never leave her… and now she's gone away… I… just hope she isn't mad at me for not being able to go with her…" then she slowly faded away into a deep sleep not noticing that she'd made three tears fall from Sasuke's eyes.

"I've never heard anything like that before…" Itachi said returning to the room where he saw his brother crying.

"It's incredible…" he said he closing his eyes trying to stop his flow of tears.

"I'm not sure that word does it justice…" Itachi added.

Sasuke nodded and looked at his brother with desperate eyes. Itachi said "I know what you want. You want to make her happy, you want her to be happy despite having no family and only 2 friends…" he looked at the floor thinking. "I can't let her stay here forever…"

Sasuke looked at him with anger starting to grow in his eyes while his face was still soaked from the tears he'd been shedding.

Itachi saw this and said "I can't let her stay here… unless I ask the main house… you know the rules Sasuke… I can't avoid them either… I'll try my best to convince them, because I like this girl too, she could teach you a thing or two as well if she stays here… and it'll be nice for you to have someone to talk to sense you never seem to tell me anything…"

Itachi didn't know what else so say. So he just stood there gazing at his brother dumbfounded that he was crying, he hadn't seen his little brother cry since he was only a little boy.

"Thanks… don't take this in a rude way… but could you please… leave…" Sasuke said trembling while sitting on the bed next to Sakura crying.

Itachi nodded and shut the door behind him, and returned to his own room.

_**

* * *

**_

**_To be continued. . . ._**


	5. Say It Again

Chapter 5 – Say It Again

* * *

"_Why am I so dizzy?. . . Am I still at the hospital?. . . no. . . last night I remember Sasuke. . . watching over me. . .?"_

Sasuke heard Sakura groaning and shot up from his cot on the floor half asleep and put a hand on her forehead while she tossed her head back and forth groaning and trying to open her eyes.

"your still warm but your fever is starting to break…" Sasuke said half relieved.

Sakura opened her eyes sitting up, Sasuke's hand still on her forehead.

A confused look grew on her face as she blinked a few time. Staring at each other, the two froze in awkward silence.

Sasuke took his hand back, stoop up, then walked over to the thermometer to take Sakura's temperature again.

She pushed the covers off and put her two feet on the ground, but as soon as she stoop up and pet her weight on them she fell forwards and let out a squeal as she hit the hardwood floor.

Sasuke heard the squeal followed by the thud, and turned around to see Sakura face down on the floor.

"Baka!" (it means moron in Japanese) he said rushing over to Sakura. "You're not supposed to be out of bed yet!" he said sternly as he picked her up and placed her back on the bed standing by it saying "wait for a few hours before you decide to try that again."

"sorry…" she said looking at her palms still sitting up.

"Don't worry about it. I'll go get you some breakfast sense you're awake." He said walking towards the door adding "stay in bed…" before he left for the kitchen.

"why aren't you dressed for school?" Itachi asked curiously.

"I'm not going today." He said in a quiet and slightly irritated mumble.

"There are servants all over this house that can look after her… you don't have to…" Itachi said looking straight at his brother.

"She doesn't know any of them... and I can't leave her when she's this weak…" he let out a yawn after the last words left his mouth.

"Looks like you were up all night" Itachi remarked while raising a brow.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and said "you're disgusting…" while walking out with a breakfast tray in his hands.

*knock knock*…

"_Why isn't she answering?. .."_

Sasuke opened the door and saw Sakura asleep. He set the tray down on the bedside table then turned his attention to her.

"_her breakfast is going to get cold. . . better wake her up. . ."_

He climbed up onto the bed on his hands and knees above her then bent down to whisper in her ear. "Wake up nebosuke-chan"

She shot up like he expected she would, but he forgot to move, so her forehead rammed into his causing him to fall off onto the floor with an "ow…"

Sakura said "soory! Are you okay?!" about to get out of bed forgetting what happened a few minutes ago.

"stay!" Sasuke said holding his palm to face her making here freeze before she stood up.

"sorry… I forgot…" she said while rubbing her head as the pain finally started to set in.

Sasuke got up while saying "it's okay… just don't try to stand up again."

She nodded as she watched him walk over to the tray of food by her bed.

He picked it up and set it on her lap saying "here." Then pulled a chair up to her bedside and sat of it leaning onto her bed with crossed arms. As he watched her eat he was over taken with fatigue and fell asleep.

As Sakura took the last bite of her food she looked up to see a sleeping Sasuke by her bed. She stroked his fair from his face as she heard someone enter the room.

"figures…" the strange figure said standing next to the bed near Sasuke. "He was up all night making sure you were okay…"

Sakura had a puzzled look on her face as the figure came closer.

"I'm Itachi, Sasuke's older brother. I'm glad to see you're in better shape this morning." Turning his gaze to his brother adding "I have to visit someone today so he'll take care of you." He returned his gaze to Sakura and pulled something from his pocket "here." He said handing it to her "if he's still asleep and you need something, just press it and a servant will come help you."

Sakura smiled and said "thank you for going through all this trouble…"

"It's no trouble at all, my brother's wishes are close to my heart… and seeing him with you…just makes me feel happy… tell him I won't be back till late whenever he wakes up…" Itachi smiled then walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Sakura set the remote Itachi gave her on the stand by her bed then looked at Sasuke thinking _"why do all for this for me?. . ."_

She looked out of the window becoming lost in her thoughts…

_**

* * *

**_

"Ughhh..." Sasuke muttered as he slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"who's the nebosuke now?" Sakura said teasingly.

He could tell by her enthusiasm that she was itching to get out of her bed and stand on her own two feet.

"Here." He said standing up holding out his hand "let's see if we can't get you up on your feet."

Sakura's faced beamed and put her two feet on the floor. She stood up balancing on Sasuke's arms. When she let go she realized that she was still standing.

"Yes!" she cheered as she jumped in the air, then feel again saying "ow…"

Sasuke rubbed the back of his head saying "baka… just because you can stand doesn't mean you can jump…" he said laughingly.

She smiled with her eyebrow twitching saying "I knew that."

"Right. That's why you did it…" he laughed while helping her up off the floor.

Her fever had made her weak, but with Sasuke's help she was able to walk around on her own in about 30minutes.

"Well I think you'll be okay now" he said smirking. "Do you want me to show you around the house?" he asked her.

Sakura blushed then nodded at him as he grabbed her hand and led her out of the room.

He showed her the kitchen, his study room, his personal living room, and then the regular living room for everyone, and lastly his room next door.

"You already saw the dance studio and that's about it except for Itachi's rooms, which I'm not even allowed in" he said collapsing on his bed facing the ceiling with his arms spread out.

Sakura went to the other side of the room looking at a shelf with photos and pictures of him as a little boy and a young teen. "Who's this woman?..." she asked him while holding a frame of his mother smiling while holding a bundle of while cloth in her arms.

Sasuke got up and walked up behind her taking the frame smiling and said "that's my mother… that was me and her when I was just a few months old…"

Sakura saw his smile of a fond memory suddenly turn to a solemn face of somewhat sad emotions. He refused to cry but she could tell there was sadness behind his eyes.

"She's a very beautiful woman…" Sakura added as he placed the frame back on the shelf.

He sighed looking at the ground thinking _"She was the only reason I considered staying in the prison. . ."_ but he realized that Sakura was looking at him with a confused and sad face, so he just looked at her, smirked and said "I haven't shown you one place…"

"and where is that exactly?" she said raising a brow.

Sasuke gestured for her to follow him and she did. As soon as they were out in the hall she felt something wrap around her head and suddenly she couldn't see. She began panicking and yelling.

"Calm down!!!" Sasuke shouted at her "it's a surprise so I'll take it off when we get there."

Sakura, slightly irritated, allowed herself to be led by the hand by the boy who placed the blind fold on her eyes.

"what are you doing?!" she yelled when Sasuke picked her up bridal style.

"There's stairs here and you're clumsy enough to fall on top of every one of them. So I'm just going to make it easier for both of us and carry you down." Sasuke said as he walked carefully down each step.

"uh… ok…." She said, but after a few minutes she realized that he still hadn't put her down, and they weren't going down any stairs anymore.

Sasuke set her gently down on the ground and stood behind her removing the blindfold and said "this is what I wanted to show you…"

Sakura looked around in awe at the beautiful outdoor garden surrounded by 15 foot high brick walls covered in plant life. She looked around to see small patches of flowers, and a cherry blossom tree growing in the middle with a bench underneath it.

"This place… is… beautiful!!... how did you get it like this? Do the servants take care of it?" Sakura began asking a million questions while walking around coming face to face with all of the flowers.

Sasuke sweat dropped then said "um… I kinda did a lot of this myself… I just have the servants do the watering when I don't have the time…"

Sakura's eyes beamed with admiration as she came an inch from his face and asked "you garden?!?!?!"

Sasuke took at step back took a deep breath then said "yea… it's kinda a trait I picked up from my mom… she always took me into the garden she had when I was little… when you picked up the picture frame and asked about her it made me think of this place… so I felt like showing it to you."

She just smiled and said "why don't we stay here for a while. You can tell me all the plants you put in here."

Sasuke let out an "okay" as the two walked around the garden.

_**

* * *

**_

"Sasuke I'm home!! I hope you and Sakura aren't in the same bed!!" Itachi said teasingly knowing that irritating his brother was a sure way to draw him out.

"_hmm. . . he's not answering. . ."_ Itachi thought as he walked down the hall to Sasuke's room. He looked around the room and it seemed that everything was normal, but as Itachi was about to leave something caught his attention, the picture of their mother was slightly out of place.

"I know where he is." Itachi said as he smiled and headed outside.

"these are some roses I tried to make them different colors, but they're starting to fade sense it's close to-"

"well aren't you a little flower sniffer?" itachi teased as he approached the two teens in the secluded garden.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and said "what do you want?"

Itachi sighed and said "I wish you would be nicer to your only brother…" making a fake pouting face.

"Just tell me what you want" Sasuke said impatiently but suppressed his temper sense he didn't want to frighten Sakura who was right next to him.

Itachi smirked and said "I really only wanted to see how Sakura was doing… she was bed ridden this morning, but it seems that the fresh air's given her a full recovery."

"that's it?" Sasuke asked suspiciously

"that's it." Itachi said walking away with his back to the teens waving a hand good bye.

Sasuke turned to Sakura and said "that's my-"

"older brother" she cut him off. "he introduced himself to me this morning after I ate my breakfast. You were asleep so we didn't wake you up. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier… but he said he wasn't coming to back until late…"

Sasuke looked at her, puzzled. Then he said "wait here. I'll be right back" as he chased after his brother.

"wait!" he shouted as Itachi stopped and turned around. "You said you wouldn't be back until late… what's the big idea?!"

Itachi smirked at his little brother and said "they didn't need as much convincing as I thought they would."

Sasuke's look of concern suddenly turned into a smile as he said "you went to main the main house and asked didn't you?"

"I did." Itachi smirked "if you want to hear more about it I suggest you go get your girlfriend and meet me in the living room."

Sasuke became irritated and retorted "she's not my girlfriend!"

Itachi smirked walking away and said "of course she isn't, that's why you two spend pretty much every day together."

Sasuke just clenched his fists and told himself _"he's not worth it"_ and ran back to the garden to get Sakura.

The two walked into the living room and had a seat on the same couch with enough room for two people, then looked at Itachi who was sitting on an identical couch in front of them, when a coffee table in between.

"are you going to tell us what happened Itachi? Or are you going to keep staring at us with a disgustingly happy look on your face" Sasuke snarled at his older brother but keeping his voice down.

Itachi shrugged and sat up all the way from his slanted position against the armrest of the couch and said "I went into the room where your father was and I told him about Sakura, and a little of her past. It was hard to tell if he was touched, but he stood up and walked out onto the balcony and asked me to accompany him. We spoke for a while then he told me that you could stay Sakura." Itachi turned his eyes to her and smiled.

"O-oh, well if you see him, give him my thanks." She said timidly

"You can go now Sakura, I need to discuss a few things with my knucklehead brother here." As he gripped Sasuke in a head lock and playfully messed up his hair with a clenched fist.

After Sasuke broke free of his brother's annoying grasp he nodded at Sakura and she walked back down the hall to the guest room and began texting Ino sense she had almost fifty new text messages from her.

Several minutes later Sasuke walked into her room and closed the door then leaned against it.

"So what did he say?" Sakura asked curiously.

"oh nothing… just some 'rules' that I have to follow… if you get where I'm going." Sasuke said with a smirk. Then thinking _"damn. . . I told her not to lie to me but I'm the one lying now. . ."_ He leaned his head back until the top had hit the door and he was staring straight up at the ceiling.

"No matter how hard you concentrate Sasuke you're not going to make the roof burst out into flames…" Sakura teased.

Sasuke smirked being drug back into reality… still clenching the little box Itachi had giving him a few minutes earlier. Then he turned to Sakura and asked "hey Sakura… what do you think… about me? …" he asked hesitantly.

Sakura just blushed and said "well, your one of the closest friends I have, and on top of that… I spend the most time with you-"

Sasuke cut her off and said "I'm not talking about in comparison to others… I'm asking what you _think_ of me, not where you rank me."

Sakura just stared at her palms and said "I'm… not sure…" she began thinking _"what is her getting at?. . . I can't tell him I love him. . . I'd probly just scare him off and send him running for the hills. . . but I'm not sure what I can say to cover up the way I feel. . ."_

Sasuke's face turned disappointed and he began to scrutinized the floor with the same gaze he gave the ceiling thinking _"this is going to be harder then I thought. . ."_

Sakura was about to open her mouth to say something when Sasuke waved his hand and said "It's okay… It's getting late… and you need to go to school tomorrow… so you need your rest…" and he walked out of the door closing it behind him.

He walked into his room and into the built in bathroom then disrobed and stepped into the shower. Then he leaned on one hand he set in front of him against the front wall of the shower using the other hand to turn the water on. His head hung low as he reflected on the words Itachi had told him.

Flash back

Itachi smirked and said "father had one condition to her staying here. I think he might be trying a little too hard for your happiness. He's been trying his hardest to get you to com visit him, but that actually isn't the condition he gave…"

Itachi handed Sasuke a small blue cubed box and said "his condition was that you ask the girl to marry you… within the next three months… or she has to go…"

Sasuke opened the box as he said those words only to see the wedding ring that belonged to his mother…

Sasuke turned off the water sense he'd been standing in the hot shower for almost half an hour reflecting on the events that had happened that day.

"_What if I can't do it in only three months? She doesn't seem to love me right now, she's just her giddy happy self. . ."_ he thought as he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom.

Right as he stepped out he heard a knock at the door. He saw Sakura standing there looking at him in a towel blushing then stuttered saying "I-I just w-wanted to s-say thanks… again… for e-everything…" then walked away.

As her back was turned to Sasuke she face palmed herself inwardly yelling _"I can't believer I just chickened out! What was I thinking?!. . . and why did he have to be in a both towel?!?!?!?!"_

Sasuke just had a confused look on his face thinking _"what was that about?"_

He shrugged the thought off and continues to think of Sakura until his mind went blank and he was dreaming. Even then, Sakura had invaded his mind.

_**

* * *

**_

He began dreaming of him and Sakura dressed in formal attire walking down a street in the park lined with cherry blossom trees in full bloom. The leaves were scattering everywhere around him when he got down on one knee and proposed to her. She began crying tears of joy, then nodded her head, and both were hugging underneath the cherry blossom trees…

Just as his lips were about to meet hers he whispered her name then heard loud laughter. He rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed to find Itachi rolling on the floor laughing.

"Hahahahaha!!" They way you said her name was PRICELESS!!!!! Wait till I tell her!!" Itachi said while he endured fits of laughter.

Sasuke slowly turned his head with a murderous look in his eyes which caused his brother Itachi to bolt out of the room and send him running down the hall.

Sasuke yawned then walked next door to Sakura's room and walked in to see her sleeping once again.

Sasuke put a hand on her shoulder then yawned as he said "wakey wakey nebosuke…"

Sakura let out a yawn as well rubbed her eyes with an expressionless face.

Sasuke put his hand to her forehead and said "your fever's completely gone, so get ready for school." Then he walked out of the room and got himself ready in his own room.

As he walked into the kitchen after getting dressed for school he heard a giggle come from behind a held up newspaper. The newspaper was slowly lowered to reveal an Itachi red in the face trying to contain his laughter by letting out staggered giggles and snickers, but to no avail he again resumed his fits of laughter.

Sasuke just rolled his eyes till he heard Sakura coming into the kitchen. Then he shot the murderous glance at itachi again causing him to resume he giggles and snickers while retreating behind his newspaper.

Sakura witnessed the scene and reaised a brow at both boys. "okaaayyy…" she said then walked up behind Sasuke to peer over his shoulder into the fridge.

Even though Sakura couldn't see it, she'd made him blush.

"Sense itachi ate the last of the eggs… I guess I can't make omelets… so we'll have to eat cold cereal…"

He glared at his brother Itachi only getting a ridiculously childish smiling face from him while he said "he heeeeeee"

Sasuke stuck his tongue out at him then walked into the pantry to get out some cold cereal.

He walked back out and pouted his and Sakura a bowl, added milk, then set it in front of her.

"How sweet! You're serving your girlfriend breakfast!" Itachi teased.

Sasuke just grabbed his stuff as they were finished eating and Sakura's wrists as well and said "come on. We're going to be late." And drug her outside.

She gaped in awe at the motor cycle she saw in front of her. It was black with blue hot rod flames. The tires were almost as big as a car's. it resembled a café racer, but it was a v-twin engine and sound of a harley.

"get on." He said throwing her a helmet that matched the bike's pain job.

She sat behind him "I've never ridden before! What am I supposed to do?!" speaking in a panicking voice looking around everywhere almost freaking out.

He sighed then grabbed her arms and put them around his waist and said "just hold on to me tightly"

She gave him a squeeze and said "like this?"

Earning a blush from him he said "hn." And both sped off to school.

The two zoomed off through the parking lot not noticing Kakashi's glare at them.

_**

* * *

**_

The school day passed and the final bell rang, and just as Sakura and Sasuke were about to leave, Kakashi stopped them.

"Unless you want the other teachers and Tsunade-sempai to hear about your little speeding stunt this morning, I suggest you stay behind and clean the class room." He said with a smirk from behind his mask that annoyed the crap out of Sasuke.

"I'll be in the teacher's lounge. When you're done, come see me." He added then left the room, closing the door behind him. He quietly locked it so the two teens couldn't hear it and walked away snickering.

The two teens cleaned for almost an hour when Sasuke noticed Sakura beginning to fade and said "I'll finish up here, there's only a little bit more to go. You look tired. Go sit down and rest a little."

Sakura nodded and smiled at him then took a seat putting her head down and falling asleep.

She began dreaming of her and Sasuke and started whispering his name in her dream, but soon it wasn't just in there she accidently moaned "Sasuke..." out loud only to be answered with "what?"

She shot up and looked in front of her to see Sasuke staring at her with a raised brow.

"_uh oh. . . he heard me"_ were her thoughts as she sweat dropped.

Sasuke just shrugged the incident off and said "lets go. I finished cleaning to room."

The two teens walked towards the door, but when Sasuke tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. They tried their hardest to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. They were stuck there in that class room till Kakashi decided to come back.

Sasuke started cursing the said teacher under his breath as Sakura looked over and sweat dropped at him and the situation. The two sat there for about 20 more minutes tapping their fingers on a desk and their feet on the floor in awkward silence.

"_How can she be so calm about this?. . . I mean she's not even angry. . ."_ Sasuke thought as his gaze shifter to Sakura's emerald ocean eyes.

She couldn't help but notice his intent look at her and shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. She kept yelling inwardly at herself _"he keeps looking at me like that!. . . it makes me feel like he's going to do something. . ."_

Sakura got up to throw a piece of trash on the floor she found away in the bin by the door. As she continued thinking she didn't notice Sasuke get up and advance towards her while she was thinking _"I wish he'd just do something instead of staring at me like he's going to. . . it's kinda creeping me out. . ."_

As she looked up she saw Sasuke just inches away from her face, causing her to retreat until she bumped into the door of the class room.

Sasuke had a hand on each side of her head to prevent her from escaping which caused her to scream inside her head _"what the hell is with this guy?!?!?! Can he read minds or something?!?!"_

Sasuke just stared at her for a while then started to lean closer to her until he had come a millimeter away from her mouth with a smirk thinking to himself _"I've gone 98% of the way now she has to come the remaining 2%"_

She was hesitant but she leaned forward to kiss him which made them both forget they were in a school classroom and just before their lips brushed against each other they heard a clicking sound as the door was opened and they fell out of the class room with Sasuke on top of her. Their gaze averted to the white haired man responsible for opening the door. Grinning at them he said "first speed and now this? You move faster in more ways then one don't you Uchiha?" smirking at them.

Sasuke just cursed the said teacher under his breath and walked away with Sakura following after him.

_**

* * *

**_

When they arrived home Sasuke went strait to his room slamming the door behind him, leaving Sakura blushing right outside the door from having it shut in her face. Although she was sure he didn't mean to do that. Sakura went into her room and left the door cracked she laid down on her bed disappointed from the events that just occurred. But unlike Sasuke, she could handle it better.

Almost two hours passed without a sound from his room. Sakura had a hard time handling the silence so she walked over to his room next to hers and knocked on the door.

"It's open." She heard a familiar voice say.

She turned the knob and saw him sitting at his desk with nothing on it, and his hands on both sides of his head.

"What do you need?" She head the semi angry voice say.

"oh… um… I just wanted to see if you were okay…" she stuttered as she headed for the door.

"wait…" he whispered as he added "don't go…" and he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"_I didn't even hear him get up!"_ she thought to herself as his grip tightened.

"I'm…sorry…" she heard the shaky voice say. "I'm sorry… if you thought something was wrong… I didn't mean to make you worry…"

Her eyed widened and on accident she whispered "you're both similar…" Sasuke's head raised a bit knowing that "him" was her ex. She accidently was thinking out loud without realizing it and whispered "but why are you so different?..." and his ears caught is.

She could feel him smirk against the side of her face as he said "because I love you, and he didn't."

She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened and he whispered in her ear "your turn."

"_Did he just confess?!?!"_ she screamed to herself.

Sasuke let her go and she staggered and faced him about 3 feet apart from each other.

Sakura stuttered as she said "A… ashiteru…" barely above a whisper.

Sasuke took a step towards her closing the gap she'd created from jumping back after is words, and put one hand around her waist and two curled fingers under her chin to make her look at him in the eyes.

"Say it again." He told her as he leaned closer towards her lips, eyes half closed.

"ashiteru" she said and she too started to close her eyes.

Sasuke leaned forward and made their lips touch and he held her there in that same pose for about two minutes. Then he broke the kiss and placed his lips on her forehead.

Soon the two heard Itachi as he loudly walked down the hall.

"_baka. . . he thinks he's giving us time to get decent by stomping on the floor so loud. . . just goes show how much of a reatarted pervert he is. . . but at least he thinks he's being hepful. . . so I guess I have to give him some bro points. . ."_

Itachi opened Sasuke's door as he peered in to see him still holding her with an arm around her waist and her hands against his chest. He also met his brother's "I'm going to kill you" glare and said "oh I'm sorry… did I intrude on the two love birds?" teasingly while rubbing the back of his head.

Sasuke just sighed and let go of Sakura and just walked and sat on his bed.

"I'll take as my cue to go" Itachi said nervously as he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

"S-sasuke…" Sakura stuttered under her breath, but he heard her. "so do you love me or not?" he asked nonchalantly while he stood up to face her running his fingers through his hair.

"I-I do." She stammered shocked at what was happening.

"you what?" he asked her while steeping closer so his breath almost touched her face.

"I.. I love you…" and as the words escaped her mouth she widened her eyes and found herself under Sasuke on his bed.

"good." He said right in her ear as he flicked it with his tongue.

He held his body hovering over her with his hands and knees. She tried to sit up but he just stopped it with a kiss and made her lye back down. Then he suddenly started kissing her more aggressively and deepened the kiss, which she reciprocated. Then he let his hands begin to wander around and he held onto her right thy with his left hand and slowly started to lye down on top of her while he continued kissing her. Then her hands began to wander as well while he started kissing her neck savoring its strawberry flavor. She tried to resist but she let out a small moan saying his name.

"you know I'm not going to go too far with this." He said, in an attempt to get her to calm down a bit sense he could tell she was uneasy.

"y-yeah… I kinda figured"

They just stayed that way for a while till it started to get late and the two lost their stamina to continue and just laid down on the bed. She scooted over to where he was and asked "can I stay here with you tonight?" with a tint of red on her cheeks

"hn."

"can I stay like this too?"

"hn."

And Sasuke pulled the covers over him and her and curled up behind her with his arms around her waist. There was a slight knock at the door but the two were already asleep when Itachi's head peeped in.

He walked to the side of the bed and said "I figured as much, at least he's learning to control his hormones… I guess I can tell him the news I just got from Fugaku tomorrow morning…"

As Itachi was headed to the door he heard a stirring noise.

"Tell me now"

"heh heh…. Well I'm not sure you'll mind it that much sense you obviously like the girl…"

"he asked me to propose to her… and in three months… now what does he want to add?"

Itachi turned around to answer his little brother and said with a smug look "He wants you and her to go to the main house tomorrow… don't worry about school… and he said you better be packed with cloths for warm weather…"

Sasuke just sighed a "whatever" and returned to his place behind Sakura.

"good night… love birds…" were Itachi's last words which caused a vein to pop out of the side of Sasuke's head.

_**

* * *

**_

_To be continued. . ._


	6. I Promise

_**Chapter 6 – I Promise**_

* * *

"Bags packed?" Sasuke's older brother asked.

"Yes." Sasuke replied impatiently.

"Girlfriend packed?" Itachi teased

"She's standing right next to me baka…" Sasuke scoffed.

"Then we're off to main house!" Itachi said with a giddy voice that annoyed Sasuke to his core.

Sakura took his arm that he offered her and said "so are we… official?"

"You really think I'm going to answer that after what happened last night?"

Sakura just blushed then faced the car that Itachi was using to drive them to the main house.

"Sakura-chan?"

"What Sasuke-kun?"

"I'm just giving you a warning… my father can be really disapproving at first… so don't be heart broken if he says some really rude things… but my mom will make up for them in compliments I'm sure."

_**

* * *

**_

The two were sitting in the car when she heard Sasuke yawn and then noticed the dark circles under his eyes.

"You're tired."

"No, I'm not"

"Nebosuke-kun…. Admit it…. your sleepy"

"No I'm-" *yawn*

Sakura just smirked at him triumphantly, which made him roll his eyes. Suddenly he was drug backwards by the persistent female.

"Just use my lap as a pillow and get some sleep on the way to the main house. Okay?"

"Hn."

Then he slowly closed his eyes as she stroked his bangs away from his face as he fell asleep.

There was an awkward silence for almost an hour inside the car… it seemed very bleak.

Finally Itachi broke the silence. "He gets so worked up over going to main house…" he said while driving the van keeping his eyes on the road.

"Well… why?" Sakura asked him

"He doesn't have a good history with Fugaku, our dad…. He hides from him behind me, which is why he lives under my care at my home… he doesn't like how our father tends to 'push' for our happiness then shove the people he pushed us towards away… it's a bad habit he can't seem to break… and Sasuke got tired of it and left main house and came to live with me." He said the last part grinning as if he was the winner of some prize.

"oh. So that's why he was warning me"

"Aa." Sasuke said sitting up, being woken up by the current conversation between the two. He rubbed his eyes then added "that's exactly why but Itachi didn't need to tell you" sending a murderous glance at his brother.

"She has a right to know…"

"Well I should tell her not you"

"Like you were going to"

"You never gave me the chance"

"You've had plenty of-"

"STOP FIGHTING YOU TWO!!!!!" Sakura yelled at the quarreling brothers who grew silent after her outburst.

The rest of the car ride was silent until they pulled up to be greeted by Mikoto, Sasuke's mother.

"My youngest son and his little Tenshi!!"

"_I'm. . . an angel?. . ."_

"Mom this is Sakura, my girlfriend." Sasuke said introducing Sakura to his mother. She bowed respectfully, her body at an almost ninety degree angle.

"My my! She has such a pretty face and manners to match!" Mikoto said smiling at Sakura.

"Yea mom, it's why I brought her here to meet you, and… dad…"

"Speaking of your father… you're supposed to be meeting him now… he's been waiting for you."

"Aa, I'll go see him. Should I take Sakura with me?"

"As much as I would love to hog her to myself I think it's best if you show her to your father sense he's been itching to see her ever since Itachi talked to us a few days ago on his visit."

"_I feel like I'm being treated like an object. . ."_ Sakura thought as she kept a blank expression as a façade.

Sasuke took Sakura's hand and led her through so many hallways she lost count. Then he brought her into a big room that was carpeted and led her to the center of the room, looking up to where there was a man sitting on a mat that had his back to them.

"Just be quiet and sit up straight" Sasuke whispered giving her a concerned gaze.

She sat down on a bamboo mat following what Sasuke did. She corrected her posture then set her eyes strait ahead on the figure that began to stand up still with his back to them. Before the man had turned around to face them, out of respect she lowered her head to let her eyes gaze upon the floor.

"So is this the girl that you wanted to show me, Sasuke?" Fugaku said turning around to face the said teen who also had his head lowered.

"Yes, father. This is her."

"Hn… I thought as much… a pretty face… but how are her manners?"

"Eloquent."

"And her spirit?"

"Passionate"

"Her attitude?"

"Humble."

"Her disposition?"

"Quiet"

"Hmmmm…. I'm beginning to like this girl… but I need to see for myself, which is why I've arranged for the whole family plus your girlfriend to go on vacation to our small beach house in Okinawa"

"Yes sir."

"You're both dismissed. Now get back in the car and meet your mother and I at the airport. We'll be flying first class. Give your brother his ticket as well." Fugaku handed three plane tickets that looked more like passes to his son.

"Aa." He replied take the tickets from his father's hand then standing up and turned to face Sakura who was standing up as well following what Sasuke was doing. Then he led her out by the hand almost speed walking to get out of there

"Sasuke slow down!" She almost shouted as Sasuke practically dragged her out of the Uchiha estate.

"Sorry… I just wanted to get out of there…"

"Tell me something I don't know…"

"Fugaku might actually accept you as his daughter in law… He seemed to be looking at you with eyes I've never seen… The look of them wasn't 'love' but it was definitely close to acceptance… I just wanted to get out of there because I don't like him… sorry…"

"We're not even engaged… so why does he need to figure that out now?"

"Don't ask me it's his policy… that whenever I show _any_ interest in a girl that she come and meet him… or me at least introduce her to him."

Itachi intervened and said "alright love birds off to the airport!" which caused a vein to stick out of the side of Sasuke's head, obviously irritated at his brother's giddy mood.

_**

* * *

**_

The two walked down the terminal towards their flight that was headed to Okinawa beach, along with Itachi who straggled behind them.

"Wow… I've never been in an airport before… but I guess I've never had to fly anywhere…" Sakura said slowly taking in all the splendor of the hustle and bustle of the airport.

"Hn. It's not as glorious as you think it is." Sasuke said tilting his head as they approached their plane adding "we have our own private jet for our family so we'll be flying there in pretty much an airborne house…"

Sakura just rolled her eyes at his description of the so called 'plane'… it didn't sound like one…but continued following him then stepped onto the stairs leading up to the plane.

Her eyes widened to see how it was a lot like a mini house. There was a small half circle table with a half circle couch around it. Then there was the kitchen area that looked about the size of her house's kitchen, and all the other things that made it nothing like a plane at all... Sasuke was right… it was like a house…

"It feels kinda… roomy…." Sakura said slowly taking in the luxurious interior of the top notch plane.

"Hn. We renovated it to be our home away from home when our family has to take business trips to far away places." Sasuke said while showing her to her seat, next to his.

They all waited on the plane for almost an hour until Mikoto and Fugaku arrived telling the pilot they were ready to take off. Everyone buckled their seatbelts and then waited for the pilot to tell them that they could 'roam about the cabin'. The ironic thing is that it was the size of a cabin.

"We have a small movie room on board you know." Itachi said smiling at Sakura then winking at Sasuke adding "hey bro why don't you two watch a movie sense the flight is three hours long?"

Sasuke shrugged and motioned for Sakura to follow him down the hall where they stopped at a plain looking door. He turned the knob and pushed it open letting Sakura in first then closing and locking the door behind him.

When Sakura heard the bolt click she turned around and asked "why did you lock the door?!"

"I didn't want the nuisance Itachi coming in here and annoying us."

"Oh."

"So you gunna pick a movie?" he smirked pointing to a huge rack by the giant screen TV holding hundreds of DVDs.

"Ummm…. There're a lot to pick from!... I can't choose!"

"Then I'll narrow it down… what's your favorite movie genre?"

"I really like romantic comedies…"

Keeping his smirk he reached for a DVD called "Pride and Prejudice"

"It's more romance then comedy, but if you can follow the formal language and advanced vocabulary, they make some pretty snide remarks to each other that are entertaining."

"Hn, sounds good."

Sasuke nodded and put it into the DVD player and set it up then turned to ask Sakura "do you want pop-corn or soda?"

She took a seat in the middle of the sofa heisting to answer then said "I'd love a soda" with a smile forming on her face.

He grinned then walked to a mini fridge and pulled out two cans of Coke, then walked back over to the couch and handed her one taking a seat next to her. He leaned on the arm rest of the sofa in the room and then pressed a touch pad on the side table next to him making the movie start, the surround sound turn on, and the lights dim.

At the beginning of the movie the two were relatively silent until Sakura shouted "NO!!! Mr. Collins!!! PICK ANOTHER GIRL!!!! SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU!!!!"

Sasuke tried to contain his laughter after at her sudden outburst. Then she mumbled "stalker" under her breathe when the character Elizabeth had discovered that Mr. Darcy was following her after she ran out of the church. Sasuke couldn't help but laugh at his girlfriend's commentary of the movie.

"Come on nebosuke, just watch the movie and enjoy it the way it is."

"But then it's no fun! Even if the characters can't hear me it's still fun yelling at them!"

Sasuke just smirked and put his right arm around her pulling her closer and whispered in her ear "just watch the movie" earning a red tint to her cheeks making her shut up.

She sat silently for the rest of the film and then at the end when it was a romantic scene with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy sitting out in front of the lake when they were coming up with nick names for certain occasions. One caught Sakura's attention… "goddess divine"

"Hey Sasuke will you call me that? Goddess divine?"

"No."

"Awwwww why?"

"It's dumb…"

"Well so is nebosuke!"

"But it fits you, and I gave you that nick name because of how you were acting at the time… you were a serious sleepy and hard to wake up..."

"But I want to be called goddess divine!"

"You can't pick nick names… they just happen..."

"Awwww fine… you're no fun…"

Then when she looked back on the screen to see the two characters kissing, she noticed that Sasuke had planted his lips on her forehead.

"That's cheep…" Sakura muttered as she felt her anger and frustration vanish like it never existed.

"But it works…" Sasuke said teasingly and smirked as the lights to the mini theater room came back on sense the movie had ended.

* * *

"Oh you two are just in time. The plane's about to land so take a seat and put your seat belts on." Mikoto said giddily at the two teens entering the main area of the plane.

They nodded and did as Mikoto instructed them to taking their seats and buckling their seatbelts for the descend of the plane to the airport below.

Sakura didn't notice until the plane started to drop that her and Sasuke's hands were intertwined and when she looked over to face him he just had a snide little smirk that seemed to be saying 'you now just noticed… baka…' with playful sarcasm written all over his face.

"The plane has now landed you are free to pick up your belongings and exit the plane." The captain said as the sound of seatbelts un-clicking was heard around the plane.

The door of the plane opened and Sakura and the rest of the Uchiha family were greeted by a salty breeze compliments of the ocean only five miles away from the airport. Then the family turned their attention to a limo parked a short distance from the stairs of the plane. They saw their chuffer wave at them with a pleasant smile saying "welcome back Uchiha family!"

They all waved and put their bags in the storage compartment of the limo and one by one took their seats inside.

Sakura of course sat next to Sasuke. When she looked at Fugaku she couldn't help but notice that he was shooting her daggers with his glare that made her shiver, paralyzed with fear. As soon as Sasuke noticed he wasted no time in grasping her hand in his and giving it a small squeeze to let her know that it was only temporary and that he didn't really hate her like he appeared to.

"Fugaku stop that!" Mikoto said angrily at her husband giving him a small slap on the arm. "What's wrong with you?!" she added ferociously not afraid to reprimand her husband in front of the three other people in the car.

The said man just shrugged then looked out the window until they arrived at their family's beach house that they had in Okinawa.

"Wow…" Sakura said, surprised that it wasn't some grand palace. They pulled into the driveway of the house that seemed to only have a few rooms, but at the same time it looked incredibly modern and spacious, all from the outside.

When they all took a step inside maids immediately took Sakura's bags and said "off to the young master Sasuke's room, ne?" and bolted off towards the room without letting Sakura have a chance to answer answer.

Then Fugaku turned to his youngest son and said "I'm sure you don't mind… the guest room we have is currently being renovated, so you two will share a room…" giving his son a look that was almost fierce.

After Fugaku had walked down the hall to his room with Mikoto, Sasuke just face palmed himself saying "I'm sorry… my dad's very pushy… It looks like he wants me to do something wrong or break the rules so he can jump on me with a burning passion… but the truth is… he's trying to apologize for the past so he keeps trying to do things like this… thinking that it'll make everything better… I'm sorry you had to get caught up in the middle of it."

"No. it's alright… I mean… we can both stay on our own sides right?"

"Hn."

Both teens went up to the room and began conversing on what they were going to do for the weekend they were supposed to spend locked up in the Uchiha family beach house.

"Well we could go surfing" Sasuke shrugged, then he noticed that Sakura started to look at the floor.

"I don't know… how…" she mumbled with disappointment.

"Then…. What about skim boarding?"

"Don't know how…" she said again.

"Shell collecting?..."

Her head shot up with a beaming smile "YES!!!" she shouted as she bolted to the bathroom to get changed into her beach attire coming out a half second later.

Sasuke sweat dropped and said "that was fast…"

"Your turn silly!!" she shouted as she shoved him into the bathroom closing the door behind him.

A few minutes later Sasuke came out only wearing navy blue swim trunks which made Sakura's face go crimson red.

"Uhhhhhh… no shirt?"

"No."

"Why?"

"It's the beach baka…. No one wears a shirt on the beach… unless they're a girl…"

Sakura just shrugged and started walking towards the door when her outfit caught Sasuke's eye. She was wearing a light blue sundress with a towel texture and he could tell she had on a bright yellow swim suit underneath, and her hair flowed freely down to her shoulders.

"What's wrong?" she asked when she noticed Sasuke not following her but just staring at her with a slight pink tint on his cheeks.

"Nothing." He replied nonchalantly as shook his head making his face return to its normal complexion.

The two walked out of the small beach house and towards the private beach with their little bucket to collect sea shells in.

Sakura skipped in the sand and said "I bet I can find more pretty shells then you can!" with a joyous ring that was _almost_ annoying to Sasuke, but he didn't care sense he liked her so much.

"I don't doubt that…" he said sweat dropping that a boy like him was going 'shell collecting'… he was glad that no one else was on this trip with him, or he would never hear the end of it.

_**

* * *

**_

"Fugaku look at them…" Mikoto said pleadingly to her husband as she stood out on the back porch facing the beach watching the two teens shell collect, laugh, joke, chase, and tease each other.

"What about them?" Fugaku replied to his wife as he made his way beside her watching the two teens as well.

"They look… so happy together…"

"I know…"

"Then why do you detest her so much?"

"I don't"

"You sure as hell act like it." Mikoto said with a slightly bitter tone towards her husband.

"How so?" He asked facing her with a raised brow of curiosity.

"When ever you look at that girl you send shivers down her spine because you're not just looking at her… you're glaring at her like you plan on murdering her… the fear is written all over her face… I'm sure Sasuke's tried to explain your behavior to her, but I'm sure that she can only take so much of your subconscious hostility…"

Fugaku sweat dropped at what his wife had told him. He knew it was the truth as much as he wanted to deny it. He rubbed the back of his head then asked "so what do you want me to do?"

"Try as hard as you can, to show her that you do like her, and you want her to stay with our son… that's what I want you to do…"

"Well I still need to find out if Sasuke was bluffing about the kind of girl she is. That is a possibility if he likes her enough, he might lie to me to make me accept her."

"He's not… we both know that our youngest son isn't that way at all. And for your information, when I first saw her she bowed so low to me that her face was almost the same level as her knees, all to show her utmost respect for her loved one's mother… it was very polite on her behalf… and I was very, _very _impressed…"

"It seems he's found his _tenshi_ now doesn't it?" Fugaku said with a teasing smile.

"Well she definitely acts like one." Mikoto added mimicking her husband's smile.

Fugaku and Mikoto continued to watch the two happy teens chasing each other on the beach and collecting sea shells in the bucket they'd brought with them. Until they decided to stop spying and get started on preparing dinner, sense the sun was already beginning to level out with the sea.

* * *

"Hey nebosuke… the sun is setting…"

"And it's beautiful… isn't it Sasuke?"

"Hn. But we need to head back. My mom's going to be starting dinner soon."

"Oh! I wana help!"

"I'm sure she'd love it if you did"

The two teens had a bucket full of shells, and an afternoon of memories on the beach, so they decided to hike through the sand back towards the beach house. When they arrived they stepped onto the back porch and used the mini showers to wash off the sand that they'd managed to get all over themselves, then Sasuke grabbed a towel by the screen door to dry off. Then he suddenly turned to Sakura and got an idea.

"Come here" Sasuke said playfully holding out a towel for her to walk into"

Sakura just smiled and walked forward like he asked her two, enveloping her in a hug with a towel for a divider between the two.

"Bring back any memories?" he smirked.

She nodded and said "the water park… the sunset we watched before heading back… I do remember. It's like we did it all over again… but it was a real beach this time…"

He just made a playful smirk "let's just hope that there aren't any thunder storms tonight… then it would be an _exact_ replica of that day at the water park" he said teasingly.

"Not funny" she said with a slightly twitching eyebrow giving him a playful bop on the head.

"Relax" he said rubbing the back of his head from the impact trying to alleviate the pain, facing the sky. "It doesn't look like there's going to be a storm, and it doesn't smell like it either."

"Smell?"

"Yea, the skies can change in the blink of an eye, but if you memorize the scent a storm blows from miles away then you can tell before you even see grey clouds forming."

"Oh. That's a nifty trick…"

"Hn."

Then the two walked into the house almost dripping wet to see Sasuke's mother hard at work in the kitchen cooking.

"Hey you two! Looks like you had fun!" Mikoto greeted warmly smiling at them.

"We did, and we got some shells too." Sasuke said as held up the bucket to show his mom their treasure trove of collector's items.

"That's great! You can show me them after dinner if your up for it!" Mikoto chirped enthusiastically.

Sasuke nodded then walked up towards the room to take a shower and get changed into his cloths leaving Sakura and Mikoto to talk amongst themselves in the kitchen.

"Umm…. I don't want to feel like I'm intruding… but maybe after I'm done changing… do you think that I could help you with dinner?..." Sakura asked shyly looking up at the eyes similar to Sasuke's.

Mikoto beamed with pleasure and said "of course! I'd love having another hand in the kitchen. The work goes by faster, and the company is always appreciated."

Sakura smiled and said "then I'll be right back down after I get dressed in some… dryer cloths…" and smiled as Mikoto nodded. Then she ran off towards the room to change.

_**

* * *

**_

"And then he went crying to his older brother Itachi saying that he couldn't reach it!" Mikoto said laughing as her youngest son walked into the room eyeing the two women in aprons cooking and obviously chatting about something that had to do with him.

"I don't think Sasuke's quite like that anymore, but it's funny to think he was." Sakura giggled not noticing Sasuke was in the kitchen staring at her.

Sasuke smirked getting an idea and walked directly behind her breathing directly onto her neck saying "I used to be like what?"

Sakura jumped at the sudden shock and almost burned herself on the stove because she was cooking some chicken for their dinner.

"Sasuke! Don't do that while I'm cooking! I almost got burned!" she screeched as Sasuke just smirked.

"If you did get burned" he leaned forward until he was an inch from Sakura's face "I'd just kiss it better."

Mikoto's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm as she jumped up and down saying "you two are _too cute_!! My son's so out going and you're so shy and introverted! It's a perfect match!"

Sasuke just rolled his eyes at the delusional comments his mother's vivid imagination was conjuring, and left the room to stand out on the back porch. Sakura watched him walk out of the screen door then looked at Mikoto who nodded with a smile. Sakura smiled back then took her apron and bandana setting them on the counter, and followed after Sasuke.

She found him leaning against the wooden rail facing the ocean. He looked distant gazing at the amethyst colored sky with his onyx orbs, and his hair as black as his eyes was blowing in the salty evening breeze of the ocean.

"Are you… okay?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"Hn. I just wanted to think."

"You're not mad are you?" She asked leaning on the rail next to him facing the ocean as well.

Sasuke tilted his head with a puzzled look and said "why would I be?"

Sakura shrugged then said "you seemed kinda annoyed back there for some reason…"

"Aa, I was, but it's okay. My mom just tends to get carried away with her emotions, and loves having a female friend to talk to. You were bound to hear stories like that anyway, so I don't have much of a problem with it…"

"I'm sorry if it embarrassed you… but if it helps it doesn't affect the way I see you now… and I won't talk about it when there are other people around…"

"Hn."

The two just watched the sunset in utter silence enjoying the quiet company, even without words, they had a mutual feeling of warmth between each other.

* * *

"Itachi dear go get your brother and Sakura." Mikoto asked with a happy-go-lucky tone of voice to her eldest son, who also seemed to inherit the trait.

Itachi just shrugged then walked to the screen door leading to the back patio but right when he opened it Sasuke sense his presence and said "what do you want Itachi nii-san?"

"Mom sent me to get you two. Dinner's ready and it's time to come out of your little _secret rendezvous_ spot and back to _reality_." Itachi said teasingly, then walked away.

A vein popped out of the side of Sasuke's head in utter annoyance as he mumbled "that guy really pisses me off…"

Sakura giggled at his frustration earning her a puzzled look from Sasuke.

"I'm sorry Sasuke-kun you just look so funny when you get irritated like that."

He just shrugged at the comment and led her inside to the dinner table where everyone was seated, waiting for the two to take their seat before eating.

"We've been waiting for you two." Fugaku said twitching his mouth in an attempt to smile, remembering what his wife had told him earlier.

As dinner took place Fugaku smiled as he took a bite of the chicken turning to his wife saying "my compliments dear, the chicken is excellent."

"You shouldn't be complimenting _me_ Fugaku-kun. _Sakura's_ the one who did the chicken" Mikoto said to her husband with a smile.

Fugaku turned to Sakura trying his best to make up for earlier saying "I had no idea my future daughter in law had such wonderful culinary skills." And he was actually giving a genuine smile to go alone with his compliment, no lip twitching.

"_He's smiling?..."_ Sasuke thought suspiciously as he eyed his father. The clenching feeling he'd been having in his stomach about this whole trip suddenly loosened, and he was able to relax for the first time.

_**

* * *

**_

"Sorry about my dad…" Sasuke said to Sakura who was brushing her hair in the bathroom mirror.

She put her brush down on the counter near the sink and walked up to Sasuke and said "to be honest I like _all_ your family… including your father…"

Sasuke saw Sakura standing in front of him, and seized the opportunity to hug her and said "he was trying tonight, to ne nice… so I don't think there's anything to worry about…"

Sakura returned the hug then let out a yawn, which made Sasuke smirk. She broke the embrace and walked out to the mini balcony of their room leaning on the rail looking at the stars that hung over the ocean. Sasuke watched her for a minute in silent admiration gazing at her perfectly proportioned body and her shoulder length silky pink hair.

He soon got up and walked up behind Sakura putting his arms around her waist resting his chin on top of her head.

Sakura let out another yawn stretching her arms to the side, but instead of them returning to her side she wrapped them around Sasuke's neck behind her head. They stood like that in the evening breeze from the ocean for a couple more minutes till Sasuke noticed Sakura beginning to fade.

"Come on nebosuke… time for bed…" he said quietly.

She was tired but managed to turn around to face him putting her arms back around his neck. He sighed then picked her up as is if she were a six year old child and carried her to the bed. He slid them both under the covers cuddling her from behind, both facing the same direction… and just before she fell asleep he whispered "good night my little nebosuke…" Then he heavy eyelids soon won the battle she'd been fighting with them to stay open, and closed with victory as she fell asleep.

He felt her body loosen in complete repose in his arms shortly after he said those words. Then after a few more minutes he fell asleep too.

* * *

Sasuke woke up to find an empty indent on the bed in front of him where Sakura was. He rubbed his eyes and sat up looking out the window listening to the seagulls crying. His attention soon turned to the bathroom door when he heard it starting to open. He quickly laid back down, before she would be able to see he was up. He heard her humming a happy tune as she walked over to the suit case on the floor next to her side of the bed. He slightly cracked his eyes to see her in only a towel which almost made his nose bleed, so he turned his body to face the other direction.

"Grow up Sasuke-kun" he heard Sakura say as he heard her slipping on articles of clothing.. "I knew you were awake the whole time…"

"Then why did you-"

She cut him off with "I don't really care to be honest… so long as you don't touch me or stare at me… or try anything funny…"

Sasuke smirked propping himself up on his left arm, his hand supporting his head as he laid down sideways facing her. She had knee length shorts on and a red bra with red lace bra straps.

"You're staring…"

"I can't help it."

"You can… you just don't want to.

"Same thing."

"No, it's not…"

"Well I'm not touching you am I?"

"Knowing you… you probably will…"

"You wish I would."

"Nooooo… I don't…."

"Hn. What ever you say."

Sakura just rolled her eyes while rummaging through her stuff for a shirt. She began mumbling under her breath, aggravated that her search wasn't producing any results.

Sasuke was just sitting up staring at her, admiring her, and some how thinking that he was seeing things, or that he was dreaming that she didn't care if he saw her this way.

Sasuke got up and crept up behind her quietly while her back was still to him distracted searching for a shirt. When she felt the presence of someone behind her she immediately whipped around to see onyx orbs an centimeters from hers. She backed up only to find a wall behind her and a hand on each side of her head.

He slowly leaned in closer, ignoring her insecurity and nervousness, until their lips met. As he kissed her he could feel her returning his kisses each time. Then he deepened the kiss and became slightly more aggressive, and she reciprocated everything he was throwing at her. He sensually licked her lower lip asking for entrance, which she granted by slowly opening her mouth wider, and the two found themselves enslaving the other's tongue for a few moments then Sasuke broke the kiss and started to nibble and kiss the skin on the nape of her neck, but moving around to keep from giving her a mark.

"S-sa-sasu…ke… please…" she moaned when his hand slowly wandered up her bare back to her bra clasp, and right as his hand was over it he froze. Lowering his head refusing to look at Sakura, he walked out of the room throwing her one of his shirts on his way out, and slamming the door behind him.

She put on the shirt then sat on the bed looking out the window wondering what all of that was about. _"Was he mad as me for saying. . . or 'moaning' his name?... Was he mad at me for?. . . oh forget it there's no point in trying to figure out why he just stormed out of here. . ."_

While she was sitting on the bed with her legs crossed, thinking, and staring out of the window of their room at the baby blue sky, a familiar head popped in the door.

"If you're wondering where my brother's sulking… his favorite spot is on top of a really big rock near the shore of the beach… I'm sure you saw it yesterday while you were out there… it's pretty hard to miss…" Itachi said in a cheery tone in an attempt to get Sakura to smile.

She didn't look at Itachi but nodded and said "arigato" (thanks) with her head held low she got up and walked past him down the hall, out the back patio door towards the beach.

Mikoto noticed Sakura emitting a sad aura as she walked through the screen door off the back patio walking towards the ocean. _"Are they in their first real fight?"_ she thought quietly while reading a book she'd brought along on the trip in case she got a spare moment of quit time to herself.

Sakura walked out onto the sand shielding her eyes from the brightness of the cloudless sky, allowing the sun to shine directly on her relentlessly. As she approached a large rock she saw a figure dressed in a black shirt and dark blue jeans. _"Sasuke"_ she thought as she climbed up to sit next to him.

Before she could even sit down, with his back still turned to her he said "I'm sorry about storming out of there... it wasn't your fault… I just… didn't want to hurt you…"

Sakura didn't understand so she scooted closer and hugged his arm while resting her head on his shoulder and asked "I don't get it… what are you trying to say?"

Sasuke sighed then broke the hold she had on his arm and wrapped it around her as she cuddled closer to him and he explained "I was about to loose control of myself… I already felt something wasn't right when I decided to just pin you to the wall like that… you just had me so turned on with the way you were dressed and all…. And I just had to do _something_ to keep myself from pulling my hair out in frustration… So I just kissed you but I got more and more sucked in… and I almost lost control over my hormones… so before I got carried away I used all my will power to get a hold of myself… and I left… and I was mad at myself for almost letting things go too far… when my hand was over your bra strap… that's when reality set in on what I was doing… and I didn't like it… so I stopped…"

Sakura was amazed at how much of a real gentleman he was… she wasn't shocked in a bad way, she always knew him to have good manners and to be kind. But she didn't know that he could be _this_ honorable…

"Thanks…" were the only words that left her mouth in a whisper as the two sat on the rock, looking out over the ocean.

_**

* * *

**_

That weekend at the beach was the most fun either Sasuke or Sakura had ever seen. But finally it came time to go back home, it was their last day at the beach house.

"He,y Sakura-chan" Sasuke said as he watched the waves crash onto the beach from his balcony.

"Hm?" Sakura answered him as she walked over to stand next to him on the balcony.

"Thanks for coming along… on this trip with us… I know you didn't really have much of a choice sense there's really no where else for you to go… but it's the most fun I've had sense I was a little kid… thanks."

"You're welcome" Sakura smiled at him then added "this is my first time going to the beach, without my mom, and you know what? I'm not sorry I came… I miss her… and it's hard… but not as hard as I thought it would be… sense you're here."

Sasuke just looked at her with his eyes slightly widened sensing her dampening aura _"she's strong. . . to be able to. . . control her tears. . . I can tell that she really want to cry right now. . ."_

She turned, faced him, and looked at him in the eyes as one tear slowly fell down her cheek. She slowly opened her mouth to speak and said "my mom once told me that just because you don't cry… doesn't mean you're strong… she told me that strength was the opposite… she told me that true strength was being able to cry and show your emotions without caring what anybody thinks…"

Then one tear fell from her other eye which caused Sasuke's arms to voluntarily wrap around her petite frame pulling her close in an attempt to comfort her. Both her hands were placed on each side of his collar bone, and her face was buried in his chest. The two tears she'd cried earlier gave way to rivers flowing from each eye.

Sasuke felt a knot in his throat as he tried to find his words.

"Your… your mother… your mother was right…"

Sakura's grip tightened on his shirt making it wrinkle as she continued sobbing trying hard to not make a sound as her whole body was shaking from the emotions she was struggling with inside. Sasuke's grip around her tightened too as he shed a few tears of his own.

He knew how much she loved her mom, and she only lost her less then a week ago. Sasuke didn't see her as strong for holding her tears in, or being strong enough to let them out. He thought her strong because she was still able to function normally, and keep her composure, and maintain her optimism… even though she's lost both her parents, her home, no other family connections, and has only a few friends… she's still smiling each day… despite all she's been through… that's why he thought of her as strong…

Eventually a few minutes later Sasuke noticed she had stopped sobbing. He pulled her a few inches away from him to examine her face. She had droopy eye lids and foggy emerald orbs. He picked her up and set her on her side of the bed, pulled some sheets over her, kissed her forehead, and said "take a nap… nebosuke…" and left the room quietly closing the door behind him.

When he turned to walk down the hall he saw Itachi which immediately made his blood boil. Itachi stopped in front of his younger brother who had just finished closing the door of his room and asked "she ok?"

Sasuke's irritation subsided realizing that his brother hadn't come to annoy him.

"Hn. She just needs to take a nap."

"What were you two doing that made her need a nap?" Itachi asked with a quirked brow.

Sasuke simply thumped his brother on the head… he deserved it… and replied "She was crying… about her mom… and when she stopped crying she looked exhausted, so I put her on the bed and put some sheets over her and decided to let her rest."

Itachi smirked then walked past his brother. Then when both were back to back Itachi looked over his shoulder and said "promise that you'll always take care of her like that?"

Sasuke looked over his shoulder copying his brother and said "Aa. I promise." Sasuke's smirk turned into a grin then slowly evolved into a smile before walking away from the door and his brother.

* * *

_**To Be Continued. . . .**_


	7. A Million Times Yes!

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto and I probably never will so don't sue me if you work for Masashi Kishimoto 0_0**

**A/N: I hope you enjoy this chapter!! It's a happy one, but be for-warned... there's going to be some serious drama after this chapter!! and that's all i'm giving away!! ENJOY!!!**

**plz R&R as well ^_^**

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_**Chapter 7 – A Million Times Yes!  
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Sakura and the Uchiha family had just gotten back from their vacation at the beach. They still had two days left before school started its fall semester.

"Uh… um… Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked looking at the floor.

"Yea?"

"I just got a text from Ino about something…"

"What?"

"If I'm going to be living here… I need to go through some stuff at my house… you know… what to sell… what to bring…"

Sasuke's gaze lowered as well till his obsidian orbs rested on the floor of the living room.

His brother who was standing in the doorway threw some keys that hit Sasuke in the back of the head. "It's at the end of the driveway" he said then walked away while a vein popped out of the side of Sasuke's head.

"How many cars do you have?!" Sakura asked with a raised brow.

Sasuke sweat dropped "too many…"

Sakura and Sasuke walked to the end of the driveway, and sure enough, there was the shiny black pick up truck with empty cardboard boxes in the back.

Sasuke sweat dropped thinking _"was he planning on my taking her to go get her things?. . ."_

The two drove to go get her belongings in silence. Not even the car radio was on. Sakura seemed to be more interested in scrutinizing the palms of her hands that rested in her lap. Sasuke however, decided that her glum mood was too much for him.

"Hey nebosuke, wake up."

"I'm not asleep baka…"

"You look like it because of the way you're totally out of it."

"Well sorry…" she said in a mean tone and glared out the window.

Sasuke just sighed and took one hand off the steering wheel to hold her hand and that was on the arm rest of the passenger seat. Sakura blushed, but kept looking out the window.

Eventually the two arrived at the front of her house, and it looked barren. They only thing that caught their attention was an eviction notice posted on the front door. I t said that she needed to remove her belongings or they would be confiscated.

She sweat dropped and felt so ashamed to be kicked out her own home.

Sasuke noticed her expression and tried to comfort her saying "hey, there's nothing you could've done about it. You're still in school, and there's no way you can earn enough money to pay for it."

"I know… but… I grew up in this house. I've only lived in this house. I can't believe that it's gone…"

Sasuke just took her hand carrying the flattened empty card board boxes with the other. They both walked inside to find the house untouched.

Sakura walked slowly to a shelf on the wall of the living room with pictures of her family. She picked up a picture that had her mother, father, and her in the middle when she was a little girl. Her eyes became watery, but she refused to cry.

"I'm… kind of happy…" she said in a whisper.

Sasuke walked up next to her with a puzzled look on his face and asked "why?"

"Because, she's with dad again. She missed him so much while she was still here with me after he died, and now she'll get to see him again…"

Sasuke just tried to keep a neutral expression as she hugged the family picture to her chest, and let one tear fall. He took his index finger and traced the tear up her cheek to her eye where he stopped the next one from falling. Sakura was slightly embarrassed to be crying, so she set the picture back on the dusty shelf and headed up to her room. Sasuke followed behind with the stack of flay empty boxes under his arms.

Time went by fast and an hour later all of her things were packed minus her furniture, sense she wouldn't really need it. She only had one left to pack. Sasuke was taking them out one by one to the truck to take them back. Then she only had a few things left to pack from the living room. She walked up to the shelf with the photos and slowly wrapped each one in a thin cloth to keep from getting damaged and placed them in a box, then she saw the family photo albums and packed those as well. She looked over to find one last item that required her attention, it was a key. Her mother told her that if anything were to happen, the key would need to be used.

"Well mom… it looks like it's come down to this…" she said while picking the key up and examining it in her hand.

She didn't realize that Sasuke was in the room watching her, but he decided to keep his mouth shut, sense Sakura was obviously in enough pain. He felt like he didn't need to tease her and make it worse. Sakura took the key and the note attached to it in an envelope and put it in the cardboard box with the other emotional belongings.

"You know… there's still your mother's room…"

"I know… I just… wanted to go there last is all."

"Hn."

He carried the half packed box for Sakura. When they walked into her mother's room there were cloths scattered across the floor and an envelope on the edge of her mother's bed. Sakura ran over and opened the large rectangular envelope to pull out a stack of papers.

"It's… her will."

Sasuke just walked up beside his girl friend and took the papers from her shaking hands saying "let's have Itachi deal with this… you're getting too emotional. I care about you and I don't want you to get sick from being like this."

Sakura just nodded in understanding as Sasuke took the envelope and put it in the box followed by the few possessions her mother had in her room besides furniture. Sakura sighed as she set her eyes on her mother's most prized possession, her weeding dress. It was a beautiful angelic white strapless gown that had a fitted corset like shake from her chest to her waist until is smoothed out to a silken skirt that would have to be picked up with walking. The top half was decorated with artesian bead work in a design that had several spirals all over it. Sakura always envied the dress and told her mother how much she loved it…

Flash Back 

"_Mama!! Mama!! What's this?!"_

_Sakura's mother sighed looking at her seven year old daughter's excitement and took the dress off the hanger lowering it so her daughter could admire the beadwork more closely by running her hand over it._

"_This is my wedding dress dear. I wore it when your father and I got married."_

_Sakura looked up with beaming eyes and said "really?!?! that's amazing!! I can't wait to get married!!"_

_Her mother sighed then laughed at her little girl who was skipping around the room humming the wedding march theme._

"_You know dear, one day you'll own this dress."_

"_Really?!?! Would you let me wear at my wedding then?!?!"_

"_Of course I would!! Now let's get that scrape on your knee patched up like we were going to before you got distracted."_

End Flashback

Sakura started to tear up again saying "why am I crying so damn much?!?!"

Sasuke just sighed and walked past her then stood in front of her wiping the tears from her eyes before they fell and said in a normal tone of voice keeping his cool "you lost your mother. You'd have to be heartless and inhuman not to cry."

Sakura just shrugged as she was able to get herself to stop, and gently folded her mother's gown and placed it inside some tissue paper, then carefully set it inside the big card board box in the middle of the room. They began going through the rest of her mother's clothing finding out what Sakura could use and what she couldn't. The cloths she could wear were placed in the cardboard box and the ones that couldn't were set aside to be sold. Sakura walked over to her mother's dresser staring at a mahogany box that was almost black with the choice of wood stain. The box was about the size of a microwave and had little drawers and a big door like thing that took up half the box. Sakura was sure she didn't want to open it so she set it inside the cardboard box gently and sighed as she had finished going through her mother's few possessions. A sigh of relief left her lips as Sasuke turned to face her.

She turned to face him and return his gaze and said "I'm really glad you came… I don't think I could've done anything with out you… I would've just wound up collapsing and sobbing, as dumb as it sounds. Thanks."

Sasuke wrapped his arms around her tiny frame and wrapped her in an embrace that she instantly returned gripping his shirt so tight that it made permanent wrinkles that could only be taken out by an iron. He simply pulled her closer when she tightened her grip on his shirt, and she cried making his shirt damp and causing it to cling to the skin of his chest. Her breaths were uneven and shaky as the tears poured from her eyes into his shirt. They seemed to have no end in sight. Sasuke suddenly felt her grip loosen to see that she'd passed out in his arms from her emotional stress. He gently lifted her into his arms with ease and carried her to the passenger seat of the car and placed her in there buckling her in (safety first kiddies!!). Then he returned up stairs to collect the last box they'd packed from her house. He made a quick phone call as well to Itachi to tell him to take inventory of the things they decided were of no use and sell them and put the money in a bank account for Sakura.

When they returned home Itachi was sitting in the living room his pajama pants and white t-shirts and it was almost 10pm. Itachi saw Sasuke carrying Sakura and have him a funny look. Sasuke carried Sakura to her room that was next to his and tucked her in bed after removing her shoes. When he had finished tucking Sakura in he returned to Itachi in the living room. They both say there in utter silence of understand, only Sasuke knew what had actually happened, but Itachi had a close guess.

"So let me guess…. It was too much for her to take in and she fell apart." Itachi said as he leaned back against the couch with a cup of tea in his hands.

Sasuke shrugged with his elbows on his knees and the backs of his hands were hovering above his mouth (a typical pose for him), then he said "sort of. She kept her cool until she finished packing all of her mother's things. I guess the harsh emotions that she'd been keeping to herself just sank in and took her out. It was hard to watch, but I have a funny feeling that time will be the greatest healer for her…"

Itachi shot his brother a sympathetic look as he watched said "I don't think so. I think that you will be her greatest healer. You hold the power to make her smile more then anyone else does, at least from what I've seen. You make her smile more then her best friend Ino can, and even Ino notices this. Why else do you think she told you take Sakura home that night in the hospital?"

Sasuke didn't reply but just looked at his brother as the pieces started to come together in his mind. _"I'm such a fool. Why couldn't I notice that she loved me too?. . . I feel so stupid. . . I have to do something quick before it's too late."_

_**

* * *

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While Sasuke and Itachi were talking in the living room about Sakura, she was busy in her room talking to Ino over the phone. Ino didn't want to know what happened that day about going back to her house to collect her stuff. Instead she just talked about all sorts of random things trying to make Sakura laugh. Though Sakura wasn't in a humorous mood she decided to just play along and make her friend feel like her attempts to cheer Sakura up weren't in vain.

Ino finally asked Sakura a question that made them both freeze and think "hey when's the next dance practice? We were supposed to have one weeks ago, but then you know…" her voice trailed off then added "and then the Uchihas plus one went on vacation."

Sakura froze thinking of how there really hadn't been any rehearsals for their group had they? She shook her head in amusement about how Sasuke was so caught up with taking care of her the he almost completely forgot about their gang. Sakura blushed then said "well I'll ask him ok? In fact why don't I ask him right now?"

"Yea, you go do that. Tell me when practice is when you get word and I'll tell everyone else, okay?"

"Sure."

Then they both hand up and Sakura went down the hall to go find Itachi and Sasuke who were still chatting in the living room, but not about her anymore. Sasuke looked up and scooted over on the couch so that she had room to sit next to him. She just smiled and he smirked and Itachi just observed silently chuckling to himself.

"Hey Sasuke-kun when is the next dance practice? Ino said that the gang's itching to practice."

Sasuke just looked over at her then looked at the ceiling in thought and said "yea it has been a while sense we've had a practice, that's gotta change… tell them that there'll be a practice after school next week on Friday. That should give Ino enough time to tell everyone."

Sakura just nodded and began opening her phone to text into the new date for the next dance practice. Sasuke just smirked as he mused about the phone she was holding, he bought it for her! He was flattered that she was using the phone he bought her sense the old one she had was bought by her mother and no longer had service. The girl just nodded and smiled and left the room after the text was sent. Sasuke just looked at Itachi was a raised brow as if asking his brother a question through telepathy and his brother just nodded giving his 'consent' to his brother leaving the room and going after Sakura.

"Sakura wait!" Sasuke said in a regular husky voice with a slight volume raise to it to catch her attention sense she was half way down the hall about to turn a corner towards her room.

Sakura looked up fro her phone and caught hold of Sasuke's onyx orbs locked on her emerald ones. He just walked up right in front of her and motioned her to follow him. She just nodded slightly confused by the Uchiha's sudden change of attitude and seriousness. She followed him out to where they were in the garden he made because it reminded him of his mom. Sasuke walked under the shade of the single cherry blossom tree located in the middle of the garden and took a seat on the small bench under neither it. He gestured for her to sit next to him and the two sat in silence for several minutes.

Sasuke worked up the nerve to speak and said "listen" and stood up off the bench and stood in front of her continuing, "I know that this might seem sudden and ill thought out" and got down on one knee and took her hand and said "but I need to do this so that I won't loose you and you won't just slip through my fingers when I least expect it" then he took out the little box from his pocket and opening it revealing a beautiful but simple wedding ring with three standard cut diamonds. The one in the middle was the largest and the two smaller ones accompanied it to make it stand out.

Sakura gasped and said "Sasu-"

And he cut her off saying "I know it's selfish, but I feel a connection to you that I haven't felt towards any other person, ever. And I don't ever want to loose that. Please, marry me."

Sakura couldn't hold back the tears tugging at the corner of her eyes and said "I…" but couldn't speak so she just engulfed him in a hug and wept saying "yes! Yes! A million times! Yes!"

Then Sasuke gave one of his extremely rare smiles, not a smirk, a smile. He just hugged her back slipping the ring onto her finger. Sakura was about to text Ino when Sasuke said "wait, don't do that. I know that you're excited and want to tell everyone but we're only 16, and I don't know how it will rub over with the others. They might see you as my weakness and try and scare you off. I don't want that, so just keep it on your finger and keep a low profile about it."

Sakura didn't know if he was telling the truth, but she figured that it wouldn't hurt to just be careful, which is what he was being, but she really wanted to tell Ino about it! She just let the thought slide and started walking towards the house hand in hand with Sasuke. Both smiling and not even realizing they were, because to them they weren't even thinking they were so happy.

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Sasuke walked into the living room with a triumphant look on his face causing Itachi to raise a brow and look at Sakura's hand. And sure enough, there was the ring that he'd given Sasuke to use to propose to her. Itachi didn't need to say anything but smiled and nodded at Sasuke with approval. Sasuke would never admit it out loud, but he feels like for the first time he's actually done something right. He then told Sakura to go back to her room and he'd talk to her in a minute. He wanted to talk to Itachi first. She just nodded and skipped out of the room, obviously so happy that she seemed almost high off of drugs or something.

Itachi just chuckled as she left the room then looked at Sasuke and said "so what's the day you want to marry her?"

Sasuke just sighed disappointedly and said "well to be honest I want to wait until were out of school, and I dissolve the gang, or at least make it so we're just a group that dances together and nothing more."

Itachi sighed the same as his brother and said "I understand, but you might want to tell little miss suddenly sugar and sunshine that."

Sasuke smirked at his brother's comment, nodded, and left the room without another word.

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_**To be continued. . .**_

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At long last! Chapter 7 is COMPLETE!!! can't wait to release chapter 8!!! I should be able to finish this weekend but no promises ;)


	8. Dissolving

**Disclaimer:** don't own Naruto.... darn....

Sorry for the long wait guys =} I've just been really really busy with a crap load of things like school. And if you haven't noticed I have two other fan fictions that I 'attempt' to update regularly (plus I have a few experimental fanfics I'm keeping under wraps until I have like the first 8 chapter fully written). My grades have suffered a tad due to my obsession with writing but hey, it's better than being obsessed with video games or something lol xD. but anyways I hope that you guys like this chapter I'm sorry if it's short or doesn't make up for the month long absence. I promise I'll try harder to update this one. It's the furthest along out of any of my fan fictions. I also would love it if you R&R ^_^ thanks!

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**Love~~~~~~ *wooooosh*... comes softly....**

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Sasuke walked into Sakura's bedroom with the full intention of telling her about his plan to dissolve the gang, but something pulled at his heart when he heard Sakura on the phone with Ino laughing and chatting.

_"if I dissolve the gang... will she still be friends with Ino?... or would I just be taking a friend away from her..."_ he thought silently to himself.

Sakura saw Sasuke standing in the doorway of her room and froze. Sasuke could hear the loud blond on the other end of the phone yelling at Sakura to answer her, but Sakura just blinked a few times and remained silent.

Eventually she spoke into the phone and said "sorry Ino-pig I have to go I'll call you back" and hung the phone up before the hyperactive girl on the other end could respond.

Sasuke decided that he wasn't going to tell her. He would have to wait for a better time, when he wouldn't feel extreme guilt. For now, he was just going to enjoy simply being with her and nothing else.

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Back at school after a long weekend, at least to Sakura it felt long. So much had happened to her. But somehow she felt like she could just let go of the past, and finally let go of her grief and greet tomorrow with a smile. She had expected it to take longer, but the smile on her face was evident proof that she was happy to be wrong about that assessment. Sakura and Sasuke went to class where Sakura was pulled away by Ino and Sasuke was pulled to the side by Naruto.

"Hey forehead girl what was up with you hanging up on me then never calling back?!" Ino screeched.

Sakura scratched the back of her head and laughed nervously. She never meant to forget, but apparently she had. "Sorry Ino-chan.... I guess I forgot.... heh-heh..."

Ino just shook her head and waved the subject starting a new one about the school festival coming up. Ino had plans for the gang to do a dance performance to raise money for some charity of some sort.

Sasuke could see Ino and Sakura were having a pleasant conversation and on accident he found himself staring at the back of Sakura's head. Naruto had to snap him back to reality.

"hey teme!!! TEME!!!!! ANSWER ME!!" the over exaggerating blond boy shook Sasuke and brought his attention back to his cerulean orbs.

"what?" Sasuke snapped, obviously irritated.

Naruto scowled then said "you didn't hear a dang freaking word I said did you?!?!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, so Naruto took that as his queue to continue ranting at Sasuke.

"You never spend any time with the gang anymore!" Naruto yelled, but kept the volume so no one around would hear him 'word-for-word'. "How come you just all of a sudden stop hanging out with us? And worst of all you're our leader!!!"

Sasuke was getting done with the annoying yellow haired nuisance and hissed "practice... today.... after school... spread the word to everyone else..."

"Dattebayo!!! WE HAVE OUR LEADER BACK!!!!!!!!!!" Naruto yelled earning him awkward glances and glares from his fellow classmates. He even attracted the attention of Ino and Sakura.

Sasuke just cold shouldered Naruto for his stupidity and took his seat in the classroom hoping the annoying boy would just leave him alone now.

-

-

"Warm up" Sasuke ordered as he flipped the music in the studio on.

Everyone did as instructed and once warm ups and stretching was complete Ino voiced the idea of a routine for the school festival. Sasuke nodded at the idea so Ten-Ten, Ino, Sakura, and Hinata all walked over to the side of the room to discuss the plans while Kiba, Lee, Shino, Sasuke, Neji, Shikamaru, and Naruto worked on their own individual dance steps for contests between gang rivals and stuff.

Once a few hours had passed the girls presented what they had in mind for the choreography while the boys commented (not all of the comments were 'child-appropriate' so yeah hehe). By the end of the practice everyone was happy to be together again and told Sasuke that they'd see him at school tomorrow and grabbed their duffle bags and water bottles and left the studio leaving Sakura and Sasuke standing in there waving at them. Neji closed the door behind him, and whit that Sasuke turned to Sakura.

She turned to face him and had a puzzled look on her face so she asked "what is it?"

Sasuke sighed then said "nothing..."

_"damn it... I'm going to have to tell her at __some__ point..."_ Sasuke scolded himself inwardly.

"ok!" Sakura said cheerfully as she walked out of the studio to go take a shower and get in her pajamas. She also had a lot of studying to do. She had two tests tomorrow in English and Science, two of her _worst_ subjects.

-

-

The following weeks were the same routine. Sasuke was having practices after school every other day. Then finally when they had choreographed their dance entirely they needed to decide on costumes. Each person made a suggestion then Hinata put it all down on a sketch pad and smiled saying "got it".

The day of the school was fast approaching and there was only a week left. They decided that that they would just give the profits they planned on giving to a charity would go to the school sense that's where they'd be performing and on top of that Ino couldn't find one that had a spotless record of doing what they say they did with the money.

-

-

One day after school Sakura decided to go home with Hinata and Neji to see how the costumes were coming along. She saw that hers was a one shoulder sleeved baby blue shirt with crimson colored dragons spiraling all around it. Then her pants were a simple cashmere material with the same color as the dragons on her shirt. Sakura thanked Hinata and told her that it was amazing. She said that everyone had the same pants and colored dragons, but each person would have a different colored background on their shirt. Like Sasuke had a black background, Naruto had orange, Shikamaru had light green, Kiba had brown, Neji had white, Ino had deep amethyst purple, Hers (Hinata's) was a lighter shade of baby purple, Shino's was a very light grayish tan (like his jacket color in the actual show), and Ten-Ten had magenta. Then they would all wear black tennis shoes.

Sakura shook her head vigorously up and down as if to say 'YEESSS!!!!!'

Hinata looked slightly concerned at Sakura who seemed like her head was going to fall off from nodding her head so excitedly.

"I'll probably have them done for our second practice in four days" Hinata said quietly, the way she almost always spoke.

Sakura was happy and gave Hinata a monstrous hug yelling "THANK!!!! YOUUU!!!!!"

Neji looked slightly worried at Sakura's inhuman hugging abilities, at least at how hard she was hugging his younger cousin. Neji thought that Sakura was going to snap Hinata in half. He saw his cousin's face turn blue then decided it was time to intervene.

"heh-heh Sakura I think you're going to kill her if you don't let go..." Neji said nervously peeling his cousin from Sakura's bear hug.

"sorry!" Sakura chirped while scratching the back of her head with a smile on her face.

-

-

The day was finally here. The day of the festival was today. Sakura shot up out of bed and got dressed in her normal school cloths (as much as she wanted to wear the costume she couldn't just yet). Sasuke told everyone at their practice yesterday that they should put their costumes in their school bags and put them in their lockers so they could change right after school and practice just a few more times before they were supposed to perform.

After class all the group members dashed to their lockers then to the bathrooms to change their cloths. All the guys were out first and were standing at the entrance of the girls bathroom (because not one of the girls had come out yet... typical...) and they could hear what they were saying. The girls didn't have a clue that the boys could hear them though, so they just kept chatting like they were the only ones in the whole world that could hear their conversation.

"Sakura get your butt over here!! I'm doing your make up!!! whether you want me to or not!!!!" Ino yelled trying to corner Sakura.

"You wish Ino-pig!!! I'm not wearing that trashy shade of eye shadow!!!" Sakura yelled back dodging Ino's make up brush.

The boys were starting to chuckle out side of the bathroom hearing what was happening.

Ten-Ten rolled her eyes at the girls saying "Ino stop screaming! and Sakura just make her pick another shade!!"

Sakura was still dodging telling Ten-Ten "are you kidding?! that's like asking Sasuke to smile!"

All the boys tried hard not to laugh (because the girls would hear them) at the Uchiha who had smoke coming out of his ears and one of his eye brows was twitching.

Ino finally cornered Sakura and pinned her to the bathroom floor by sitting on her and started applying make-up while Sakura was letting out blood curdling screams. Ten-Ten sighed at the two squabbling girls, and the boys outside the bathroom had to plug their ears at the screeching that was more annoying than 100 Narutos.

"Ino-pig!!!!! GET OFF!!!!! YOU WEIGHT _**A TON!!!!!**_" Sakura yelled at Ino who was sitting on her adding "**I CAN'T BREATHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**" 

Ino scowled at her best friend implying that she was fat, but she was sitting on Sakura.... she should've expected comments like that. All the boys who were outside of the bathroom were now raising their eyebrows in interest at what was going to happen next. Calling Ino fat was even worse than calling the Uchiha a softy, and Sasuke would snap your neck in half... so what was Ino going to do now?

"Sakura... you _did __**not**_just go there!!" Ino said angrily.

Sakura deviously smirked then said "oh... I think I _**did**_..."

Ino jumped up off of Sakura and yelled "LISTEN HERE FOREHEAD!!!!-"

but before Ino could finish her angry declaration Sakura hopped up off the floor and ran for the bathroom exit yelling "it worked!!!!!" adding an "_**FREEEEE**_!!!!!!!"

She ran through the doors with her half done make up and stopped once she saw Naruto, Kiba, Shino, Neji, Shikamaru, Lee, and Sasuke staring at her. They all tried hard to stifle their laughter (with exception to Sasuke, he doesn't laugh)... but the whole situation was just too funny. Everyone but Sasuke burst into laughter. Sasuke just had a smirk on his face which is the equivalent of laughter for him. Sakura seeing this noticed he was the most rational and stomped over to him yelling "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?!?!?!"

Sasuke just kept smirking and said "we've been standing out here the whole time."

The other girls had come out of the bathroom and heard what Sasuke had said and yelled "WHAT?!?!?!?!?!" Ino ran after all the boys leaving her female companions in the dust to sweat drop at her seemingly inhuman rage.

"Ino-chan... please.... calm yourself!" Hinata said as Ten-Ten added "it's not good for your skin! You'll break out!"

Ten-Ten was bluffing but she knew how much Ino cared about her beauty and figured Ino would fall for it, and she did.

"oh no!" Ino yelled suddenly doing yoga to calm her nerves.

Everyone just stood there staring at her and sweat dropped at the girl as if she were an alien. Once Ino had got a grip on her emotions they all set out towards where they'd be performing for the school festival.

-

-

(play "Favorite Girl" by Justin Bieber for the dance scene, the steps sorta coincide with the beat but not necessarily the lyrics)

They were standing out on a wooden platform with students walking by watching them. They were all standing there in their costumes and make up (except for Sakura she washed her makeup off).

Then their music started to play and they all burst out dancing different moves but at the same time they were in sync and seemed like they were all dancing the same way. Then three pairs broke off : Sasuke and Sakura, Ten-Ten and Neji, and Shikamaru and Ino. The rest were dancing in the background as the three couples did the exact same movements. Sakura and Sasuke were in the middle with Shikamaru and Ino to their left and Ten-Ten and Neji to their right.

Crowds of people were starting to stop and watch the performance and were slipping little amounts of money into the booth's deposit box (each booth had one so that if someone liked it they would put money in it).

(as this is read I used Sakura and Sasuke but the other two couples are doing the exact same thing) Sasuke spun Sakura outward and rolled her back so that her back was to his chest as they slid sideways. Then his right hand was on her lower back holding her right hand, and her left and was on his lower back hold his left hand. Then they did some 'fancy-footwork' and released each others' hands and faced each other. Sakura did a split and Sasuke lifted her back up then when Sakura took a step back and everyone fell into line again (no more couples).

Naruto on the far left and Sasuke on the far right started doing scissor kicks getting closer to each other with each kick as all the girls in the group stepped forward to do 'their-own-thing' they were talking about. When Naruto and Sasuke were within a foot of each other (happening behind the girls of the group) they jumped back up on their feet and fell in step with the other boys dancing in the background behind the girls. Once they were done with their 'mini-group' choreography the boys jumped in front of them when the girls took a step back and they dominated the stage. The girls split into two groups, one on the far left, the other on the far right.

Naruto did a jumping jack over Kiba and Shino's head (who were in the middle of the stage) and ran two feet back from the front. Then bent forward and a 90 degree angle slapping his hands on the side of his face making an 'oh no!' expression as Shikamaru (to the left if you're facing the stage, and Kiba to the right) ran the same time as Kiba. Naruto held the expression and didn't flinch as Shikamaru jumped and dived over the top of Naruto landing in a summersault, while at the exact same time Kiba did a dive under Naruto's face at the height of his chest about a foot under Shikamaru and landed the same way, in a summersault. Then when Shikamaru and Kiba jumped up to their feet (in sync) and began dancing the same thing Naruto started doing back flips while Sasuke slid on his knees out from under him on one of the flips. Once Naruto was in the back and Neji and Shino were on each side of Sasuke, the three began to do a 'b-boy' style dance. Naruto, Shikamaru, Shino, Kiba, and Lee all began to do 'fancy-footwork' coming closer and closer up behind the three 'b-boy' dancers and started doing the same moves as him.

Then the girls who had been doing stand back moves on the sides of the group burst forward in a 'unique' way. The boys were all side by side now in a perfect line with the girls (partly out of view) behind them. The girls got a running start and dove on their stomachs. Sakura popped out from under Sasuke's spread out legs, Ten-Ten under Neji's, Hinata under Naruto's, and Ino under Shikamaru's. Then the boys who didn't have girls pop out from under them stepped to the side (Kiba, Shino, and Lee). Then the boys who _did_ have the girls come out from under them took their right foot and spun 180 putting it on the ground with their back to the audience as they reached down and took the girls' right arms and pulled them up spinning another 180 degrees so the girls' backs were facing the audience. Then the Kiba, Lee, and Shino who were off to the side jumped back into view and started break dancing. While Kiba was doing shoulder halos, Lee began doing scissor kicks in front of Kiba while Shino did Scissor kicks behind him. Lee and Shino were on opposite sides of Kiba so the total effect was pretty kool. Then they jumped to their feet and let the other's come up front to dance. They did some more couples dancing until the end of the song when they all struck a pose.

At the end the poses for the couples had the boys 'dipping' girls down close to the floor with their faces an inch apart and the girls had one leg in the air and one arm around the guy's neck. Then Lee was in the middle showing waist up (from the couples 'dipping' their partner) with his fist pumped into the air in a 'V' sort of style. Then Kiba was to the left with his head towards the middle laying on his side with his elbow on the ground propping his head up with his fist. and the other fist on his wait. Then his right leg was bent upwards like an upside down "V" and Shino was mirroring what he was doing but was on the right side of the stage.

(stop playing music)

The audience erupted into applause and started cheering at the group. All the members on the stage were panting from exhaustion from a butt kicking dance.

None of the group members could think of something to say to describe their performance other than "perfect".

-

-

"DATTEBAYO!!!!!" Naruto cheered walking beside Sasuke through the festival adding "we kicked butt!!!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at his loud blond friend then said "stop yelling."

Naruto ignored Sasuke and asked "so where are you taking us?!?!?! huh?!?!?! huh?!?!?!" getting in Sasuke's face. Not a good idea.

Sasuke thumped Naruto on the head and said "just follow me".

Eventually they were off school grounds and walked for a mile through the woods. Neji , Shikamaru, Shino, and Kiba remained silent in understanding knowing where they were going. Naruto just had to keep yelling and asking questions until he got his answer when they arrived at their destination. They were standing in front of an old abandoned two story cement building that was out in the middle of the woods. There were a few shattered windows and the door to it was half beaten to a pulp.

Naruto gawked then said "I knew it!!! I knew we were going here!!"

Kiba rolled his eyes then said "if you were so sure then why'd you keep asking him you knuckle head?" grabbing Naruto in a head lock, making a fist, and rubbing Naruto's head with his knuckles messing up his hair.

Everyone walked inside the decrepit building and Sasuke was the last to enter and shut the door behind him. Everyone took a seat in the old lawn chairs scattered about the room they were in and looked at Sasuke with a puzzled expression.

Neji, getting right to the point asked, "why are we here?"

Sasuke crossed his arms then emotionlessly said "I'm dissolving the group..."

-

-

_**to be continued.....**_

-

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Sorry I took so long I really am!!! I've been trying to update my three fan fics i've been writing on here sense they're up and i'm keeping people waiting every time I don't update. And then I have like two or three experimental fan fics that I only have written and not published but I think I might try to fix that at some point. I just don't want to wind up having over seven fan fics going at the same time, and not being able to update. That would become a problem. With three fan fics my grades are already slightly suffering. I'm really sorry if you can't wait for the next chapter. It's spring break so I'll so what I can do. I'm also working on my computer situation. If you've read my recent work on my other fan fic "love like this" you know about my computer virus that I got. and how I'm having to use my mom's desktop. I think my brother is going to give me his lap top if i give him my wireless internet adapter for his desktop, but I'll wait and see what happens and let you know, but in the mean time please R&R!!!! ^_^


	9. VROOM VROOM!

**Disclaimer:** I DO NOT own Naruto. =)

I don't know why no one seems to read this, but if you do please R&R this one only has two reviews and nin freaking chapters!!!! ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!! The fact that this is longest fan-fic I have up so far, and the first one I ever started, it breaks my heart to have practically no reviews on it =(((((( PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!! I'M BEGGING YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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**Love**

**C**

**O**

**M**

**E**

**S**

**Softly**

-

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"You can't do that!!!" Ten-Ten stood up and shouted out angrily.

"Sit down." Neji barked obviously trying to keep the tension in the room from spiraling out of control.

Naruto scratched the back of his head with a sad expression and said "I don't' get it… we were together for so long… why?"

"It's because of_ her_." Shikamaru said pointing at Sakura.

"Don't blame her like that. It's shallow." Ino spat.

Shikamaru smirked then said "I didn't mean it like _that_. I mean it's her fault because Sasuke's gotten a soft spot for her, and she's made him realize how this gang thing isn't such a safe idea."

Ino rolled her eyes then said "it's not anyone's fault."

Sasuke felt like face palming himself as he said "I'm dissolving us as a gang off the map. I never said that we were over as a group. We can still just dance for fun, just not in the streets."

Kiba shrugged then said "I'm going to miss the adrenalin of the fights… but I guess it won't be such a bad move to do that."

Naruto was the least happy but reluctantly agreed.

Everyone else simmered down once they realized that they weren't _completely_ going to be disbanded.

Neji stood up walking towards the raven haired boy facing everyone saying "actually, Sasuke _and_ I made this decision together."

Sasuke nodded and Neji continued with "we thought it was better for everyone if we give up the street life we've been trying to imitate just to be considered 'cool' when we really look like upper-class thugs."

Shino lowered his gaze pushing his glasses saying "sadly, I can't stay if that's how it is."

Everyone looked at Shino with puzzled faces.

Shino sighed then said "my dad told me to be in a 'gang' to be tougher. If we aren't a gang anymore I can't stay. It's not my choice. It's my dad's. I'm sorry guys, but I'm out." And with that Shino left the flabbergasted possy walking out of the door.

"Anyone else?" Neji asked sarcastically.

Silence.

"Good" he and Sasuke said in unison.

"Do we still get to keep the necklaces?!" Ino asked holding on to hers possessively like she wasn't going to give it back even if the answer was 'no'.

Everyone just rolled their eyes and sighed at Ino's materialistic issues.

-

-

It had been a week sense the 'gang' was dissolved, and the 'group' was never happier. They were able to hang out in the open without the worry of someone 'reporting' them possibly another gang challenging them. They took a lot of crap for dissolving. The other gangs called them week and trash talked them every time they saw them, but they didn't care, because they didn't have to fight them. They could just casually brush them off to the side and continue with their everyday lives just as they normally would.

Sakura was taking it the best out of all of them sense she wasn't in the 'gang' for that long, and she wasn't even a fan of gangs in general. Sasuke was taking it second best along with Neji, because they saw how much more everyone else seemed to be enjoying life.

Ten-Ten, Kiba, and Naruto were taking it the worst. They missed the adrenalin and action of being in a gang. But they took this opportunity of the dissolve to turn themselves around and face a new path.

A lot of the people in the group wanted to go on to be professional dancer except a few.

Sasuke had to take on the Uchiha Corporation. It wasn't even a choice. Itachi was given a choice sense he was the oldest, and he chose to opt out, leaving Sasuke with the full responsibility of inheriting the corporation himself.

Neji was also being forced to take on the Hyuuga Corporation. He wasn't in the main family, but because he was the eldest child, and only male in the whole family, it was his duty to inherit it.

Then Naruto wanted to be a stand up comedian. Good luck with that one!

Hinata wanted to be a poet who would write pieces of inspirational poetry that people would wind up quoting some day.

Everyone else wanted to just be a dancer for life. Even Shikamaru who always thought everything was a 'drag' wanted to dance, and dancing takes _work_! Lots of it!

Sakura also wanted to grow up to be a dancer. She wanted to be in music videos with all the famous people and be able to bust a move whenever she wanted to without feeling like people were thinking how stupid she looked. She somewhat card what other people thought, but when she danced, and looked cool doing it, she felt her confidence shoot to new heights.

-

-

Sakura was walking down the school hallway towards her locker when she saw Sasuke leaning on the locker next to it.

"How did you know where my locker is?" she asked with a raised eye brow.

Sasuke held a small sliver of paper in between his pointer an middle finger that he held up with all his other fingers down.

Sakura rolled her eyes then asked "where did you get it?"

"Ino"

Sakura rolled her eyes again then mumbled "does she always have to be like that?!..."

Sasuke chuckled at her then said "wana go see a movie?"

Sakura put her finger on her chin and looked up thinking. She put her hand back down at her side then said "well I don't' have any studying to do so I guess it'd be ok. Does Itachi say it's ok?"

"We're 17. We don't need Itachi to give us his permission."

Sakura just rolled her eyes at Sasuke's attitude then said "sure, when?"

"How about 7?"

"Sounds good."

And they walked off to their class together. When they walked into the room they were greeted by Ino who yelled "so forehead girl?!?! Care to tell me what happened out there in the hall?!?!"

Sakura just rolled my eyes then said "you already know."

Ino only smirked confidently and said "not the details."

Sakura smirked back and said "and you never will."

Ino chibi pouted while Shikamaru muttered a "troublesome…" sitting next to her.

-

-

"so what movie are we seeing Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked excited walking with the tub of pop corn in her hands.

Sasuke was holding a soda in each hand and answered "Taken"

Sakura raised an eye brow then asked "with Liam Nisan?"

Sasuke just nodded and Sakura smiled giddily yelling "I love that movie!!!"

Sasuke only rolled his eyes at her childishness and held the theater door open with his foot to let Sakura in. They sat in the middle isle so the screen wouldn't be obnoxiously close, and they wouldn't be way far in the back like all the people who normally make out during a movie are.

There were only a few other people in the theater. It looked almost empty. Halfway through the movie Sakura was basically sitting in Sasuke's lap (sense there was like next to no one else in the theatre besides them). He had his arms around her waist resting his head on top of hers. She was using his chest as a pillow. Whenever a gun shot went off or someone got hurt badly or killed, Sakura would flinch. And whenever Sakura would flinch, Sasuke would just tighten his grip around her waist to let her know he was still there with her. It was a pretty intense movie after all. A CIA wicked awesome skilled dude (Liam Nisan) has his daughter kidnapped over seas in France. He goes on a wild hunt to find her within a 90 hour window before all hope of finding her vanishes. She's basically sold into a "whore house" is what I'd call it, and then she's sold for like $200,000 to some sultan dude. By the end of the movie he has his daughter back and Sakura was crying tears of joy.

"You're so emotional…" Sasuke teased.

"Shut-up! This is like, the PERFECT ending!!!" Sakura snapped back.

Sasuke only nibbled her neck and smirked as she shuttered under his touch.

"Stop that!" she hissed, "we're in _public_, are you _blind_!?"

"Maybe I just don't care…"

"Movies over… let me get up…"

"You chose to sit here _Sa-ku-ra_" he annunciated each syllable making her shutter again from the breath on her neck.

She'd had it, she was done. "Sasuke let me go! They movies over and we shouldn't be doing this here!!!!"

Sasuke knew he was defeated and just sighed disappointedly as she got up and stood facing him. She pulled him off the theatre seat and drug him out of the theatre then out of the building.

"So what now?" he asked.

Sakura shrugged and said "it was your turn to pick, so you decide."

"But I picked the movie."

"But you planned this whole date."

"pffffft!"

"What ever…"

"Why are we fighting like this?"

"Because… we're bored?"

"Hn."

"I hate that word…"

Sasuke smirked then took her hand, he knew where he wanted to go next.

-

-

"You drug me to… an arcade?..." Sakura asked in disbelief.

Sasuke nodded then said "let's go get our game card."

Sakura followed him to a cash register as he handed the man a credit card and said "$100 card please."

Sakura widened her eyes then asked "how much do games cost here?!?!?!"

Sasuke said "same as anywhere else, but when two people play it costs twice as much."

"oh."

"I picked the next place we went to so you pick a game."

"Fair enough"

Sakura lifted her finer to her chin and looked up in thought. She snapped her fingers, closed her eyes, and smiled saying "DDR"

Sasuke's face went blank with confusion.

"What?" he asked.

"DDR" Sakura repeated.

"You gunna tell me what that is, or am I going to have to guess?"

Sakura looked shocked and asked "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT DDR IS??!?!!??!!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes then scoffed "obviously not"

Sakura frowned then said "Dance Dance Revolution"

Sasuke smiled and said "dance game, huh?"

Sakura smiled and said "just caz you're pro at real dancing doesn't mean you'll be go at DDR. You have to follow directions. You're better at giving them."

Sasuke smirked then said "we'll see"

They approached the giant machine known as 'DDR' and Sasuke swiped the game card.

"_Dance Dance REVOLUTION!!!"_ the machine said as it went to a song menu.

Sakura was already on one of the two dance platforms scrolling through songs with the side arrows. Sasuke put the card in his pocket then hopped up to the platform next to hers.

"Ready?" she asked smirking wickedly.

"Sure" Sasuke said confidently.

Sakura pressed an "X" on the top left hand side of the platform and said "press the arrows when you see them get to the outlines, listening to the beat of the song helps."

Sasuke scoffed then said "piece of cake."

Sakura said "you wish"

Sasuke raised an eye while the song was still loading at asked "why is that?"

Sakura smirked wickedly again and said "I set the difficulty on expert"

Sasuke returned his gaze to the screen to have his eyes widen at the sight of too many arrows to take in.

He tried hitting them, but wound up loosing his balance and looking like a retard. The song wouldn't end unless both of them lost their gauges of 'life' or what ever it was. So Sasuke just accepted his defeat and sat down on the platform criss-cross-apple sauce. He glanced over at Sakura's screen to see she was hitting just about every single arrow. She would get combos up to 50 arrows in a row.

"_what the hell?!?!"_ Sasuke thought.

He looked over to her to see her starting to work up a sweat dancing. She was even using the balance bar for tricks!! Sasuke just rolled his eyes then muttered "show off"

Sakura closed one eye sticking her tongue out at the Uchiha forming the peace sign with her fingers saying "I told you so!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes then said "take it down just one level"

Sakura pouted then said "fine… you're no fun…"

Sasuke ignored the comment as they did the same song, this time on difficult instead of expert. He was able to keep up, barely, above the dead line. Sakura on the other hand, who was hitting almost ever step on expert, was hitting _every_ step on difficult. She didn't miss one. It was _insane_.

Eventually after three more songs Sasuke admitted defeat and said "my turn to pick."

Sakura rolled her eyes then said "go ahead."

Sasuke smirked and said "zombie invasion"

Sakura's face contorted into a 'what the f***?!' look.

Sasuke chuckled then said "follow me it's over here."

Sakura nodded and followed him to a two person shooter game. It had two plastics shotguns that were attached to the machine. Sasuke showed her how to shoot the gun and aim with the free 30 second demo it let you play before you paid to play the full version.

"Try not to die on me, I can't save you every 10 seconds" Sasuke mocked her.

"You'll eat those words!" Sakura shouted pointed the plastic shot gun at him pretending like she was going to shoot him.

Sasuke smirked then said "shoot the zombies, not your team mate."

The game started and walking dead people were slowly slugging around the streets of some random city. Sakura and Sasuke were aiming their guns at the creatures shooting and reloading when necessary. There was a petal on the bottom of the machine you used to reload, but your partner had to cover you other wise the zombies would bit you or take your health. As the level went up the zombies not only got harder to kill, but got weapons of their own. At first they got swords and daggers, then they got pistols and the previous, then they got shotguns and all the below, then they got machine guns and all of the below, then they got grenades and all of the below. You had to throw the grenades back before they exploded or it was game over.

The first time through they almost beat the game. Sasuke had to constantly cover Sakura to reload because she would open fire constantly draining herself of bullets, where as Sasuke would make every shot count.

They eventually used up their whole game card on a variety of games.

"There is one other video game we could play…" Sasuke said smirking hoping Sakura would ask. She didn't fail him.

"What?"

"We could play Mario Kart Wii back at the house."

"YOU HAVE THAT GAME?!?!?!?!"

Sasuke sweat dropped at her enthusiasm saying "uh… yeah… for a while now…"

"Why didn't you tell me?!?!?!" She chibi pouted with fake watery eyes.

"You never asked" he said teasingly.

-

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"VROOOM VROOOOM!!!!!!(she used a speed mushroom) OUTTA MY WAY BLONDIE!!!!!!(she was yelling at peach) BONK!!!!!!!(she crashed into peach ramming her off the road) MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!! (she was evily laughing at peach's demise)" Sakura screamed at the game.

Sasuke sweat dropped at how into it she was getting. She was sitting in his lap reclining using his chest for a pillow, holding the wheel close to her chest. Sasuke was holding his wheel farther away in front of Sakura's.

"Sakura calm down" he said, "You're getting way too into this."

"No I'm not!!" She protested followed by a "BANG BANG!!!! (she was shooting shells at the person in front of her)"

Sasuke just sighed in defeat, he knew he wasn't going to get her to chill out… unless…

"Chill out… or I'll make you" he said.

"Make me?! How?!" she mocked him back.

Sasuke smirked and started nibbling on her ear.

"St-stop… p-please…" she said whimpering.

That only made Sasuke _not_ want to stop. Sakura tried to ignore him and play the video game but soon she had the wheel taken out of her hands and was held high above her head.

"GIMMIE!!!!!" she yelled reaching like a helpless child for it.

Sasuke smirked then said "no" and bent down and nibbled on her neck, still holding the wheel out of reach.

"S-sasuke…k-kuuuunn…. STOP! Please!"

"Why?" Sasuke asked breathing against her neck.

Sakura shrugged then said "I don't know… I just don't want to…"

"Not good enough" Sasuke said as he turned her around to face him and straddle his lap.

"What if Itachi walks in on us?!" Sakura gasped thinking about the possibility.

"He won't be home till 8pm, he has to meet with the board of directors at his law firm."

"He's a layer?" Sakura asked trying to distract Sasuke.

He caught on and said "yes, not quit changing the subject" and claimed her lips.

She moaned in his mouth which only seemed to make him kiss her more passionately.

Sakura could tell that she was about to cross a point of no return and stopped herself then said "Sasuke… please… let's stop…"

Sasuke sighed then said "what now?"

"I can tell this is going to go somewhere it shouldn't… and… we still aren't married yet…"

"So we can't make out?" Sasuke asked with dry sarcasm.

Sakura scowled then said "That's not it. You know just as much as I do what would've happened if we didn't stop just now."

"Actually I don't… care to fill me in?" he asked with the same sarcasm.

"We would've been clouded by the 'cloud of lust' or what ever people call it… and would've wound up going _too_ far" Sakura said in the least emotional way possible.

Sasuke scoffed then said "that's stuff's bull."

Sakura rolled her eyes then said "I'm still my own person, and I don't' want to do anything that'd put us in a compromising situation. You understand my reasoning."

Sasuke nodded disappointedly. Sakura sighed then tenderly kissed him and said "but you know… we can still snug and 'nicely' kiss all we want to."

Sasuke shrugged and figured that it was better than nothing at all. He turned the Wii off and turned the TV on. They were in the 'game room' as Sasuke said it. It was like another living room that was HUGE, but it was meant for playing video games. The giant plasma screen TV in there had cable attached to it, so he was able to watch TV in there too.

Sakura got off his lap and laid down sideways in front of him resting the top of her head against the arm rest of the sofa. Sasuke sighed then laid down behind her propping the side of his head up with one of his fists. She eventually turned around to face him tucking her head in the crook of his neck. Sasuke wasn't really paying attention to it until she started pecking his neck.

"So now you're doing that to _me_? I thought you said we weren't 'allowed' to do that sort of stuff" Sasuke said sarcastically mocking her.

Sakura chuckled then said "I'm not getting erotic with it like you were."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and said "I'm a boy. What do you expect?"

"Tenderness"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at her sarcastic answer then said "whatever."

Sakura let out a deep breath then said "why are you always so sarcastic?"

Sasuke shrugged and said "I just always have been."

Sakura rolled her eyes at his vagueness then said "well you better stop doing it _all_ the time, because it makes me think that you don't care at all about me."

Sasuke sighed then said "you know how I feel."

"I know… but sometimes your actions speak louder than words. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that to you."

She was right. She wasn't. His mother was the first person to have said that to him when he was just a little boy and wanted to know why when he apologized to someone, why they didn't think he meant it. His mother had told him that it was because he didn't act like he was sorry, so it appeared that he was being insincere. Sasuke took hold of Sakura's hand rubbing the top of his mother's engagement ring reminiscing in the nostalgic moment of his mother's words. She had given it to him to propose to Sakura with. Just like his dad had used it on her. Sasuke let out a sigh and said "do you want to just sleep in my room tonight?"

Sakura raised a brow curious as to the sudden invitation and asked "what for?"

Sasuke sighed then said "I just like you being close to me is all" tightening the grip around her waist.

Sakura giggled then said "sure why not."

Sasuke smiled silently to himself while running a finger vertically down Sakura's face from in between her eyes brows down to her chin. Sakura playfully pretended to try and bite his finger, which made Sasuke smirk and say "feisty"

Sakura blushed then laughed at his remark. He really was funny when he tried.

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"Hey love birds I'm home!!! I hope you're not lying on the couch naked!!!!" Itachi yelled playfully as he walked into the door. It was 11pm and there was school tomorrow, but he was sure that his little brother was still up.

Itachi walked into the living room, no Sasuke or Sakura. Then he walked into the kitchen, nope. The Game room, nope. Sakura's room, nope. So Itachi shook his head knowing _exactly_ where they were.

He opened the door then playfully stuck his head in saying "are you awake?"

Sasuke grunted sitting up rubbing his eyes saying "I am now."

"Oh, terribly sorry about that" Itachi teased.

"No you're not now what do you want?"

"You're right, I'm not. You know lying naked in a bed isn't much better than lying naked on the couch you know?"

Sasuke scoffed then quietly said "shut-up you're going to wake her up, and we're in pajamas Itachi."

"I know. I just like messing with you to see if you actually _will_ do something like that."

Sasuke rolled his eyes then said "It's late and we have school tomorrow. Just bug us in the morning so we can get some sleep."

Itachi smiled then closed the door and walked down the hallway towards his room.

"Those two…" he shook his head almost chuckling.

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"Sakura what is the meaning of this?!" Ino screamed running up to the pinkette waving some magazine in the air.

They were all sitting at the lunch table and Sasuke was busy with doing last second home work and Sakura was doing homework that she would've been doing that night. Everyone looked up from their food and stared at the blond quizzically.

Ino held up a magazine article in front of Sakura's face and said "THIS!!!!!"

Sakura stared at Ino for a minute to check the blond's sanity then looked at the article. Her eyes grew wide as she read faster and faster then gasped. Sasuke looked up from his work and asked "what?"

Sakura stuttered for a minute then yelled "HOW THE HELL DO THE TABLOIDS KNOW?!?!?!?!?!?!!"

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_**To be continued…**_

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Thank you all for waiting so patiently for this to come out!! I'm not sure this gets many readers though… no one seems to read it and it makes me sad :'(

But anyways… If you do read this please write a review!!! I'm desperate for reviews!!! They help me improve my writing, and they sometimes make me lol for real. Like I read then and laugh OUT LOUD hahahahahaha xD so PLEASE R&R!!!!! (if you do I'll answer/respond in the next chapter, and you can request for me to add something to the story plot line if you want. I'm not dead set on something. I keep it open for my imagination and actually just write as I go.)


	10. Announcement

**Disclaimer:** I _DO NOT_ own Naruto. =)

Hey!! Sorry I haven't updated in a LONG time… I've kinda been falling behind. I've been working on some 'under-wraps' stories that I've typed and not uploaded because I want to upload a massive chunk of it so I won't have much left to fill up, which means less wait time for you all to see what happens =) I just wanted to try it out, but anyways. First thing's first. I need to type this story up for ya'll to read!!! I hope you enjoy it!!! Please R&R when you're done!!!! ^_^ =D

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"How am I supposed to know?!?!" The blond retorted.

Sakura slammed the magazine down on the table and stood up so her face was inches away from Ino's and sneered "well you sure as hell better not have been the one who found out and spilled."

No one besides Sakura and Ino even knew what was going on. Sasuke stood up and put a hand on Sakura's shoulders making her loosen-up a little. Sasuke took the opportunity to slide the magazine out from her suffocating palm on the table. He read it and closed his eyes scowling and walked away with the magazine still in hand.

"Where's he off to all of a sudden?" Ten-Ten asked pointing at the raven haired boy who was slowly disappearing out of the cafeteria down the hall.

Sakura shrugged then said "who knows…"

Ino then turned to Sakura and asked "so why didn't you tell us that you were engaged to Sasuke-kun?" with a snotty, answer expectant tone.

Sakura scowled then said "it wasn't any of your business that's why. It wasn't anyone's… not until now anyway…"

"Explain." Neji requested calmly, he was the only one who didn't have a stunned or shocked look on his face.

Sakura nodded then said "when my mother died... he took me in. Ino knows that much more than you guys… but also I've lived there since then. On top of that I've spent almost every moment with him, and we grew closer and closer. His dad had one condition that I was unaware of until he told me after I accepted his proposal a few weeks ago. His dad's condition was that he marry me, and Sasuke did it, not just because of his dad, but because he loves me. He just took his dad's condition as something to push him to do it sooner than later. Anyway, were engaged and that's all there is to it."

Everyone's jaw dropped, except Neji's and they all started randomly blurting out retorts.

"What the?!"

"Why did you accept?! You're still too young to think about marriage!!!"

"This is too sudden you shouldn't have been so foolish!!!"

"You two are just going to break up after high school!! Why make a commitment like that?!?!?!"

Sakura rolled her eyes at the random lines being shot at her and walked out of the cafeteria towards where Sasuke had disappeared hoping to find him somewhere nearby.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" Sasuke hissed while glaring daggers at his teacher Kakashi.

"I just couldn't resist I'm sorry!" Kakashi defended.

"I don't care! This was none of your business! And now you've made it not only yours, but _everyone_ else's!" Sasuke almost blew his 'cool' façade he was so mad.

Kakashi scratched his head and said "well you know how Itachi and I are close friends, so he told me. And then someone a few days later came up to me and asked if you were dating Sakura-chan… and I told them you weren't just dating… you were _engaged_… I'm sorry! How was I supposed to know it was a secret?!"

Sasuke scowled then said "don't call her 'Sakura-chan' she's not close to you. You could tell it was a secret because Itachi didn't speak to anyone else about it… and don't EVER speak to the tabloids about us ever again… I don't care what it's about you just keep your mouth shut."

Kakashi's face returned to its normal emotionless shape as he smiled and said "no promises!"

Sasuke snorted angrily then walked out of the room back towards the cafeteria.

Sakura had looked around all the near by halls and there was no sign of Sasuke anywhere. She had given up and leaned her back against a row of lockers and plopped down on the linoleum floor sitting. She didn't want to deal with the newspapers, or the paparazzi, or any other big wig magazine/press companies that would definitely be asking her questions.

"Why are you just, sitting here?... on the floor?" a voice asked from in front of her.

Sakura looked up to see Sasuke standing in front of her.

She blushed then looked down whispering "I was looking for you…"

Sasuke sat down beside her, putting an arm around her he asked "what happened? Why aren't you in the cafeteria with the others?"

Sakura continued to look down and softly spoke "because they all told me how we were going to break up after high school, how foolish it was for us to get engaged so young, or asking me what would happen if one of us changes our mind. They all bombarded me with stupid questions and statements so I left to go find you…"

"oh… I see."

"Sorry."

"Don't be" he told her as he stood up and helped her to her feet as well.

Sakura smiled then said "well I guess we don't have to hide it anymore right? Now we don't have to worry about keeping secrets" trying to sound optimistic.

Sasuke shrugged then said "but it's going to be a pain getting around the paparazzi, you do know that right? Because I'm the heir to the Uchiha Corporation… one of the biggest companies in Japan."

Sakura nodded then said "but that's not why I want to marry you, so I don't give a crap about the paparazzi, let them see us in public it's not like we're Britney Spears and K-Fed for crying out loud!"

Sasuke smirked then said "no, I guess not."

"I'm really sorry…" Itachi sighed looking at a scowling Sasuke and a blank faced Sakura.

They were all sitting in the living room and Itachi was discussing with them about the news of their engagement leaking out into the public. He promised that he wouldn't tell Kakashi things like that anymore, and he also had a little bit of unexpected news.

"Because the news already has word of the engagement… Fugaku wants to move the wedding a few months sooner… which means it'll be a few days after you two graduate… in about six weeks…" Itachi said carefully observing his brother's facial expression with every word he said.

"SIX WEEKS?!?!?!" Sakura shrieked.

Sasuke rolled his eyes then said "yes, six weeks…"

Sakura scowled at Itachi then asked "how are we supposed to plan a wedding in six weeks?!"

"Easy," Sasuke said, "we have the corporation do it for us."

Sakura looked confused and tilted her head.

Sasuke sighed then told her "we submit the things we want at or in our wedding then they make it a reality for us. We'll only need to go shopping for out cloths for the wedding. That's it."

Sakura smiled then nodded in approval.

"So should we say May 30th?" Itachi asked.

Both teens nodded as Itachi jotted a few notes down on a notepad then took out his cell phone.

Sakura and Sasuke walked out of the room and the two teens walked down a few hallways towards some doors leading outside. Sasuke pulled it open and held it for Sakura as she walked outside. They were both greeted by a gently breeze that swept both their bangs sideways tickling their faces. Sakura giggled and Sasuke ignored the tickling sensation the wind brought. They walked down a pathway leading to the garden Sasuke cared for in his spare time.

"Do you really want to go through with this?" Sasuke asked out of nowhere.

They were in Sasuke's small, private garden under the shade of a cherry blossom tree. It was past its full bloom, but still maintained its enchanting features.

Sakura turned her head looking at Sasuke quizzically as she asked "what are you talking about?"

Sasuke pinched the skin in between his eyes while furrowing his brows as he said "getting married."

Sakura looked away for a moment before she whispered "you don't want to… do you?"

Sasuke looked at the sky as he said "no, I want to. I just think that you have doubts."

"I do, but they're not very big ones."

"Tell me" he requested emotionlessly.

Sakura bit her lip before saying "what about college? You're getting a major in business and I want to major in dance. We'll wind up going to separate schools."

Sasuke grunted and remembered what his father had told him about 'studying abroad'. Sasuke was supposed to go to the states to study business in depth at one of the top universities there. Only his family knew about it though. He hadn't even told Sakura about it. The problem was he didn't know _how_ he was going to tell her he was leaving. He was supposed to leave a matter of days after their wedding.

"Sasuke?..." Sakura asked waving a hand in his face because he had zoned out.

Sasuke scowled grabbing her wrist and put it back in front of her and out of his face.

"What's wrong?" she asked with a concerned look on her face.

Sasuke stood up and face her saying "don't worry about it."

"It's may 30th?!?!" Ino squealed loudly making Sakura partially cover her ears.

Sakura nodded as she handed out 'save-the-date' cards to the rest of the gang. When she had finished she took her seat next to Sasuke and smiled. Everyone said they'd put the date on their calendar and be sure to make it.

"Ino" Sakura said smiling and turning to face her best friend, "I want you to be my maid of honor."

Ino clapped her hands excitedly while chirping "yes! yes!! _yes_!!!"

Sasuke then cleared his throat and turned to face Naruto and said "I'd like you to be my best man…"

Naruto gave a goofy grin then asked "so can I count as an uncle when you guys have a kid?"

Sasuke coughed on the water he was drinking when Naruto asked that and almost spat it on everyone. Sakura almost chocked on the shrimp tempura that she happened to be swallowing at that moment as well. The two teens blushed looking at each other then looked elsewhere.

Then Sasuke face Naruto and said "we're about to go to college. The last thing we need right now is a kid."

The whole table erupted into laughter as Naruto pouted muttering "twenty bucks says you'll have one within a year…"

Sakura blushed and Sasuke rolled his eyes.

It was only a week until graduation and final preparations for the wedding were being made. Everyone already had their tux/dresses for the ceremony. Then the reception had already found a location, caterer, flower arrangements, plate ware, entertainment, and of course, the giant wedding cake.

"Sakura, you ready?" Sasuke asked from the other side of Sakura's door.

They were about to leave for the rehearsal dinner that night and Sakura was taking longer than Sasuke had expected. She was wearing and emerald green and evening cocktail dress that matched her eyes. Sasuke was simply wearing a navy blue button up shirt with a black suit jacket over it, no tie or bow-tie, and then some black dress slacks. He left the suit jacket open to give the appearance of a more relaxed and casual feel. Sakura had finally come out of the room and was hopping on one foot trying to fix her heels on the other. She had her small purse hanging from her mouth being clenched by her teeth while she fixed her shoes. Sasuke just gave her a funny look then took the purse from her mouth and she stopped hopping and just bent down to fix it like a normal person.

Sasuke shook his head at her and said "I'm not sure if you can get any weirder…"

Sakura scoffed, ignoring his comment as she brushed past him out the door stomping angrily. Sasuke kept calling her name out but she kept walking. Something told him that he knew she was only joking around, because such a lame observation couldn't have seriously hurt her or made her upset, but Itachi thought other wise.

Itachi had witnessed the thing and told his brother "you just got shut-_down_!" as Sasuke passed him to go out the door.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at his immature older brother and said "we're taking the BMW. You'll have to take another car to get there because you're still not ready."

Itachi grinned goofily saying "heh... sorry…"

The rehearsal dinner had flown by perfectly and now Sasuke was taking Sakura back home. She was so tired that she had fallen asleep on the 7 minute drive back home. She was incapacitated in the passenger's seat like a drugged five year old. Sasuke smirked at how easily she seemed to fall asleep and looked at her peaceful face. She was obviously deep in slumber, because when Sasuke hit the curvy bump to get on the driveway she didn't budge. He pulled the car up towards the parking garage and then walked around and opened the passenger's side door. He gently lifted Sakura out of the car and held her bridal style. Sasuke then kicked the door shut with his foot and walked towards the house. He tapped the door with his foot a few times, but didn't 'kick'. The servants that were always by the door immediately answered and held the door open for the 'young-master' as he carried Sakura inside. The servants smiled at the cute pinkette they'd grown accustomed to over the past few months. Sasuke carried her down the hall then into his room, and placed her on the bed. He took off her fancy cocktail dress and replaced it with on of his t-shirts that acted like a mini-dress on her. He pulled the clips out of her hair placing them on the night stand then went into his bathroom to go take a shower.

When Sakura woke up she rubbed her eyes she found herself already in 'pajamas' and comfy as well. She didn't feel like moving at all. She heard running water then assumed Sasuke was in there taking a shower. She shrugged then supposed it wouldn't be bad if she just looked at the pictures on his bookshelf again. She held the picture of his family when he was only 6 and Itachi was in his teenage years. His parents were also in the picture and seemed to be youthful and lively as well.

The water stopped running and she heard someone step out of the bathroom. When she turned around she shrieked and looked away yelling "Sasuke get some cloths on!!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes then said "really… were engaged… it doesn't matter that much."

Sakura said "well I wouldn't be running around in front of you in a towel!!"

Sasuke smirked then retorted "but you _are _wearing my shirt. And how do you think you got in that shirt?"

Sakura thought for a moment then blushed and shouted "don't do that!!! I can dress myself!!!"

"Not when you're asleep."

"I would've woken up."

"How?"

"I don't know. I would've at some point and that's when I would've gotten dressed _myself_."

Sasuke shrugged giving up on arguing with her for the night. He was tired and wanted to sleep in tomorrow morning. He simply threw the towel off to the side (Sakura's gaze was still averted elsewhere since she saw him in a towel) and put on some boxers and a white t-shirt. He then came up behind Sakura and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Come on… it's late… let's just get some sleep. You know that we have a big day tomorrow afternoon…" Sasuke whispered in her ear.

Sakura placed her arms over his, closed her eyes, and smiled, reminiscing in the moment before she said "mhm"

Sasuke picked Sakura up bridal style and set her on the bed then crawled over her carefully to get to his side. He then burrowed under the covers pulling Sakura closer to him as he fell asleep.

_**To Be Continued…**_

Sorry for the short chapter!!! I promise I'll make it longer next time!!! It's just that I've written myself into a corner and I can't quite seem to find my way back out. Heh-heh… but I have an important announcement!!! In a couple of chapters Love Comes Softly will officially end!! I'm terribly sorry but I promise you I'll make a sequel ;) I'm already workin on some ideas to put into it. So fear not!

**mellowkid9090:** well sort of… my bf does help me, but he doesn't tell me to put it in the story. Me and him do stuff like that, like the Mario Kart. It was exactly what happened to us (minus the mini-make-out).

**kay-chan007: **I hope you know now ;)


	11. Fly Away

**Disclaimer:** I DO NOT own Naruto.

Sorry guys for taking so long to update! I've been oober busy! But now that we're taking a seriously screwed up family road trip to California from Georgia I have time to write my fanfics =) so I've already spewed about my summer plans of band camp, summer camp, and color guard on my other fan fic "Love Like This" so I really don't want to repeat myself :3 it would get annoying to have to do this on all four of my current fan fics :3 anyways. ENJOY!

Please be sure to R&R! ^(^0^)^ I enjoy your reviews!

**Love**

_Comes_

Softly

"Sakura! You're going to be late!" Ino shouted at her friend who was scrambling to get her things all together.

Sakura had her wedding dress on a hanger in a grey plastic dress protector slung over her arm. She scrambled out the door into Ino's car and the two drove off towards the chapel. When they pulled up Sasuke wasn't in sight, but they did see Naruto.

"Bout time you got here!" The loudmouthed blond yelled as the two girls hustled inside to get ready for the wedding.

When they steeped inside they saw Ten-Ten and Hinata already in their brides maids outfits. They were helping each other with their hair. They were wearing light purple/lavender colored dresses and had babies' breath (really small white flowers) in their hair. Ten-Ten had them like a half crown around the back of her head with her hair down, and Hinata had them on as a full crown around the top of her hair. Hinata's hair was so short that it was always down. Ino had finally changed into her deep purple wedding dress. Her hair was down with a single purple iris in her hair pulling half her bangs out of her face. Sakura finally changed into her wedding gown and a beautiful thing it was. It was a strapless dress that had a corset fitting bodes and a very slight poof once it hit her hips. It was a traditional length that completely covered her ankles. Sakura's hair was curled and a red rose was pinned on one side of her head. She even put of those circle shaped shiny things that make it look like you bedazzled your hair in. It wasn't obnoxious though. Ino made sure there were no more than 15 in her hair and evenly spaced at that. The girls were all excited to go out but someone was knocking at the door.

"Who is it?" Ino asked.

"Sasuke" was the reply they got.

All the girls were silent and turned their heads to Sakura who only shrugged confused at the surprise visit as well.

"You can't see the bride before the weeding it's bad luck!" Ino chirped.

"I know that. You other girls are also needed. The ceremony starts in ten minutes."

The girls pushed Sakura behind a curtain in the room and opened the door then fled out. Sasuke entered the room and stood in the middle of it. He stared at the curtain which he knew Sakura was behind, but didn't make a move to look behind it.

"I need to tell you something" he said trying to hide his growing nervousness.

Sakura swallowed sensing the uneasy aura and replied "well what ever it is, you'll have to tell it to me like this."

Sasuke shrugged, though he knew Sakura couldn't see it and continued "I wanted to tell you sooner, but after tonight I have to leave. To go to the states… my dad wants me to study abroad… I just wanted to tell you before the actual wedding so I wouldn't feel like I was tricking you. I _will_ come back after I'm done studying, however many years it may be. You're free to choose not to marry me if you want, but I still want you to. I know it's selfish, but I hope you can wait for me to come back."

Sakura was crying tears causing her make-up to melt down her face. Ino wasn't going to be happy with her. But Sakura couldn't help it could she? She didn't have a clue about this, and to find out on the day of her wedding that she only had one night with her husband before she'd have to wait for years for him to come back. It was just really scary and sad.

Sasuke had left the room after he'd told her the news and Ino came rushing in after he left yelling "forehead you're on in five!... forehead?"

Ino stepped over to where she and the other girls had placed Sakura behind the curtain and gasped when she removed it. Sakura was… crying?

"Forehead! What's wrong? Speak to me!" The blond yelled.

Sakura looked up at Ino who saw the melted make up and the hopeless expression plastered on her best friend's face.

"Sasuke's… tomorrow… he's leaving… for the states…" Sakura incoherently whispered.

Ino would call Sasuke a bastard after this was all over, but first she had to help her best friend get ready for her wedding in five minutes. Sakura eventually stop crying once Ino said that she had to fix her make-up. Ino put her make up skills to the grindstone and was able to fix Sakura's appearance just in time.

Itachi walked into the room in his tux and red rose pinned on it and asked "ready for me to walk you down the isle my little cherry blossom?"

Sakura smiled and nodded as she took the arm Itachi held out for her.

The music began to play and everyone was baffled. The song was "In My Head" by Jason Derulo. The bride's maids and grooms men entered, they were all dancing to the music (they were a dance team after all xD). Ten-Ten was first being escorted by Neji. They were dancing and Ten-Ten was jumping from side to side with her hands and the air and Neji was doing the same. When Ten-Ten jumped right, Neji jumped left. Then he took her hand and spun her around then started dancing couples style down the rest of the isle. When the two reached the end of the isle they separated and stood at their respective sides. Neji went to the left and Ten-Ten to the right. Then Hinata, escorted by Kiba walked down the isle similarly. They were holding hands, Hinata had flowers in the hand not being held by Kiba and they were doing a zig-zag pattern down the isle sidestepping then 'walkin it out', and then they finally made it to the end of the isle and went to their sides. Lee was next, carrying the two rings on a little pillow he started going down the isle disco style. Shikamaru was off to the side taking videos and pictures of everything happening (Sasuke and Sakura had asked him to. He was an excellent photographer and cameraman). A few more seconds passed and then Ino, escorted by Naruto made their way down the isle to the music. Ino and Naruto were couple dancing and Naruto spun Ino twice then 'dipped' her over the back of one of his legs. Then they made their way to the end of the isle and separated as well.

Once everyone was in place they all shouted in unison "Let's get the real party started!"

Once they said that the song "Do You Remember" by Jay Sean started playing. Everyone grew even more confused (especially the older people, but the younger adults ect. were dancing in their seats having a blast), and Sasuke entered from one of the side entrances of the chapel and walked down a separate idle to the alter dancing as he went. He did a summer salt as he went and spun around and started moon walking down the isle. Everyone was laughing and for once in a long time Sasuke had a smile on his face. He busted a move and did a back flip then two stepped in a zig-zag pattern. Then he finished his isle dance with a split then took his place next to the alter.

"Let's hear it for the bride!" Ino shouted.

Everyone stood up and the song "Dangerous" by Akon ft. Kardinal Offisial (idk if I got the artist right, probly not so sorry in advance, but you know what I'm talking about) started playing. Sasuke raised a brow as Sakura entered in her traditional bridal gown being escorted by his brother. Sakura started booty shaking (but you couldn't really see it through the dress). Sasuke smirked and when it got to the rap part (by Lucifer) Itachi went ahead and got close the end of the isle and Sakura ripped off her long skirt to reveal a knee length dress and knee high high-heel boots. She danced down the isle swinging her hips and doing some fancy foot work as she made her way towards the end of the isle. Everyone was laughing and cheering and hooting and hollering at the good time everyone was having. There were a few old people scowling because they were used to traditional weddings. Then when the rap part ended she took Itachi's had again and the two danced down the isle the rest of the way. Itachi spinning her and laughing himself at all the fun and smiles on everyone's faces, including his little brother's smile. When they got the very end of the isle the song "With You" by Chris Brown began playing, and Sakura and Itachi started walking 'traditional' style up the ten or so steps to the alter where everyone was waiting for them. Itachi handed Sakura over to Sasuke with a smirk and a nod. Sakura took the hand Sasuke held out to her with a bitter-sweet smile. Sasuke knew exactly why that look was on her face and felt somewhat guilty, but he just smiled back at her with a sincere look in his eyes. One Sakura hadn't really seen very often, only once or twice on occasion.

"Are we ready to begin?" the priest asked as the music dyed away into the background (it was still playing, just very VERY softly).

Everyone nodded and the priest added "very well then."

"We are gathered here today, to witness the holy matrimony of this man, and this woman."

The priest said his lines then asked the big questions and both answered "I do." Lee brought the rings forward and each made their vows and the priest pronounced them man and wife.

"You may now kiss the bride" he said.

Sasuke smirked then said "you don't have to tell _me_ twice!"

Everyone laughed at Sasuke's words as he bent Sakura down and planted a kiss on her lips that no one thought a human ice cube had the capacity to do.

Camera lights flashed, people cheered/laughed, and _everyone_ has a smile on their face.

The reception was being held at the Uchiha's main house and both Sakura and Sasuke stayed in their wedding cloths. When Naruto brought the cake out he nearly dropped it if it weren't for Neji helping him bring it to the table at the last second before it slipped. Shikamaru had his camera ready as they stood next to each other. They sliced the vanilla cake that had strawberries and buttermilk icing. When they were giving the first bites Sakura got some icing on her finger. Instead of licking it off she pretending like she was going to eat it then suddenly put it on Sasuke nose. Sasuke went cross-eyed looking at it then looked at her with a raised brow and put some on her nose as well. Then they both kissed it off. Everyone thought that it was a cute reception to a cute and fun wedding. When the two were leaving the Uchiha house to go to their 'one-night' honeymoon people didn't throw rice or blow bubbles, but they showered the newlyweds in strawberry scented paper confetti.

"Why do we only have one night?" Sakura asked innocently while lying on the bed in the 'pajamas' (if that's what you want to call them) that Ino had bought her a few days ago for tonight specifically in mind.

Sasuke shrugged then said "even though I'm an adult it's still not up to me, it's up to my parents."

"but-"

"let's just make tonight count… _then_ we can worry about tomorrow…"

Sasuke said as he mad his way on all fours hovering over the top of her inches away from her face. Sakura giggled then smiled as the two danced an ancient dance as old as time itself.

When Sakura woke up in the morning she found a note by her bed and picked it up and began to read it and almost cried.

_Sakura,_

_I didn't want to wake you. I knew that if I tried to wake you up to say good bye you wouldn't let me leave. I need to do this, for the both of us. I know it's selfish… but I want you wait for me. I promise I'll come home again. Because __you__'re my home now…_

_Goodbye, I love you,_

_-Sasuke_

Sakura moved her hand over the note and found that some ink got on her hand. She gasped then went to get dressed because she knew that if the ink was fresh, then he hadn't left too long ago. She might just have enough time to go to air=port and just see his face one last time. One more time and her heart just might be happy for the next 8 years he would be gone to get his masters in business.

Sakura got dressed in a simply girls t-shirt, flip flops, and blue jeans. She ran out the door with some cash in her pocket for the cab fare and then her cell phone in case she would need it. She bolted out of the door of the hotel they were at and scurried downt he side walk trying her best to hail a cab. Eventually one stopped and she hopped in then stared wide eyes at the silver haired cab driver.

"Need a lift?" he asked with a smile behind his face mask he always wore.

Sakura opened and closed her mouth a few times before asking "aren't you a teacher?"

Kakashi shrugged then told her "school's out for the summer, so I won't teach till next year."

Sakura shook her head then said "to the air port. And step on it!"

Kakashi nodded and they drove off towards the airport. When they arrived Sakura swiftly got out of the cab after handing Kakashi some money for the ride and ran as fast as she could inside. Sakura didn't know what flight she was on but she could easily ask.

She stopped one lady who was pushing some carts used for luggage asking "excuse me, but do you know what flight is the soonest leaving for the states?"

The lady thought for a moment then answered "the 5th terminal down that way" and she pointed towards the direction.

Sakura nodded and gave her thanks then took off full speed again down the large airport hallways that were a football field wide lined with shops like a mall. She didn't have time to flatter herself with the splendor of the airport. She had to find Sasuke. Coming to a screeching halt when she saw the 5th terminal sign she almost wanted to cry. The lady at the counter rang over the lobby intercom "flight T16 taking off from terminal 5 is now closed and leaving for take off." Sakura ran to the window next to the boarding gates that were now shut and watched as the plane that carried Sasuke made it's way down the run way. She put her hands against the glass and looked out the window crying as she saw the plane lift off the ground. She was too late to say goodbye and see his face one last time. The only things she had left was the memory of last night and memories of the times they spent together before they were married; the dancing gang, the school festival, her moving in to live with him and his brother. Where would she go now? Sasuke was her home now, just as he said that she was his home.

"I lost my home again…" she muttered as she slid to the floor tear stricken and broken hearted.

_**Fin.**_ (or is it? O_0)

Fear not! I _AM_ making a sequel! I haven't got a clue when I'll have the time to start it or start uploading chapters but don't think that this is the end. It's not. I can't leave Sakura crying and miserable can I? well I guess I couldn't but it wouldn't be very nice. I'm sure we all learned in kindergarten that happy endings are a _must_. Haha xD

I hope that you all will write a review for me and I hope that you all will be looking for the sequel ;D

If you add me as an author to your alerts you'll eventually find it. I'm not sure what It'll be called, but I'll add a "sneak peak" chapter to the end of this even though it's completed just so you guys will know

a) the name of the story

b) some of what's going to happen

c) what to look forward too

I have to say that one thing I DO know is that it WILL be rated "M" because I'm sure you know what all married people do xD

Anyways. I hope that you all liked this chapter. I'm sorry if it's a little short. I tried adding some humor back into it with the whole "dance" wedding xDDD


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